XU baseball takes Richmond series

Over Easter weekend, the Xavier men's baseball team

was able to win two out of the three games they played versus Richmond. The team traveled to Richmond, VA to face the Spiders and improved their record to 13-18 and 5-2 in the Atlantic 10. Redshirt sophomore Vinny Nittoli led all Xavier pitchers over the course of the weekend by pitching five innings on Friday and giving up one earned run on four hits. His performance ended in no decision, keeping his record at 3-3. Junior Jacob Mayers of Richmond threw one of the most dominant pitching performances in Richmond school history on Friday's game when he was able to throw a full 10 innings, striking

out 11 batters and giving up zero earned runs.

The game ended with the Spiders on top after 10 innings of

play with a final score of 2-1. In Saturday's game junior Seth Willoughby was able to gather his 22nd save, which ties the single season career saves mark at Xavier.

The Musketeers, who were down late in the game, were able to rally and score four runs in the final three innings and win by a score of 7-6. Junior Jon Richard started this

game for the Musketeers and gave up six earned runs after six innings of pitching. Stepping in and getting the

win for Xavier was redshirt junior Alex Vice. Vice has made 21 appearances this season, has pitched 22 innings total and has an ERA of 2.82 after this weekend. Bright spots were seen in the bats of junior shortstop Patrick Paligraf and sophomore second baseman Michael Moore.

The two combined to hit in four of Xavier's seven runs in

the game while Paligraf actually scored two of the runs over the course of the game. Sunday's game ended with

Xavier winning 7-5. The winning pitcher for Xavier was Willoughby. The starting pitcher for Xavier in this matchup was redshirt junior Tyler Koors who pitched six innings and gave up three earned runs. "I didn't think we are a homerun

hitting team, but more of a gap to gap team," head coach Scott Googins said. This statement was proven this weekend when the Musketeers never homered, but were able to produce runs off of extra base hits. Xavier ended the weekend by taking home two of the three games against the Spiders. This upcoming week the Musketeers will travel to play Miami of Ohio and then host three games against St. Louis on Hayden Field.