The GW baseball team swept a doubleheader against Dayton Saturday, winning the second game 3-0 after taking the first game 13-3.
Overnight rains postponed the final game of the series Sunday, but the teams will play a makeup between 10 a.m. and noon Monday.
“These wins are huge,” sophomore pitcher Josh Wilkie said. “Richmond is right on our tail and will be our biggest competition in the Atlantic 10 West. The next three weekends are very important. We need to win as many games as we can so we can get that first-round bye in the A-10 Tournament.”
GW (27-14, 11-3 A-10) remains ahead of the Spiders (21-16, 9-3 A-10), who swept a three-game series against Duquesne this weekend.
In the second game of the Colonials’ doubleheader Saturday, Wilkie threw a complete game shutout to help defeat the Flyers (17-21, 6-8 A-10). He allowed five hits and lowered his team-leading ERA to 2.70. It was the fourth time this season he has gone the distance.
“(Pitcher) Dan Sullivan in the first game showed me what I had to do,” Wilkie said. “It’s good to go out there and get a shutout. I threw some bad pitches, which they hit hard, but thankfully they were hit at people.”
GW took advantage of four Dayton errors in the victory. In the first inning, sophomore leadoff hitter Matt Owens (2-for-4) reached on error and later came around to score on junior Anthony Raglani’s single. Later in the inning, freshman Anthony Smith (1-for-3) knocked in Raglani for his A-10-leading 55th RBI of the season to give the Colonials a 2-0 lead.
Junior Geoff Milsom (2-for-3) led off the fourth inning with a double and scored on a two-out single by Owens for the Colonials’ final run.
In game one, GW bats produced 13 runs, knocking out Dayton starter Drew Chesebro after just one and one-third innings. Smith (3-for-4, 3 RBIs) and junior Brad Rosenblatt (2-for-3, 4 RBIs) led the charge for GW.
The Colonials took an early 6-0 lead over the first two innings and Sullivan, who started the game for GW, allowed three runs in six innings of work.
In the fourth, the Colonials tacked on three more runs and scored single runs in the fifth and sixth innings. In the seventh, senior Jeff Fertitta (1-for-4) drove in two more runs.
In his fifth appearance of the season, senior Dennis Gramolini pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning to finish the game for GW.
After travelling back to the District Monday afternoon, the Colonials will face Maryland-Baltimore County (9-24) Tuesday.
“Right now the schedule is a little tougher because of finals and that we will miss Monday and Tuesday classes,” Wilkie said. “Most of the guys know the drill, but we are going to be struggling to get the work done.”
