Syracuse splits doubleheader against Buffalo with 4-0 loss, 6-2 win
Syracuse didn’t score in 13 of its 14 innings, but a six-run third inning in the second game was enough to earn a win. Charlie Hynes | Staff Photographer
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Briefly scan the box score of Syracuse’s first game against Buffalo Tuesday. What stands out is the sheer number of zeroes. They’re hard to miss, seven of them lined up in a row. One for each inning the Orange failed to produce offensively.
Compare this box score to that of Syracuse’s second game Tuesday and there’s little juxtaposition. Except for one jarring difference: a six-run third inning. It accounted for all of the Orange’s offensive production on the day.
Syracuse (18-20, 4-12 Atlantic Coast) split its afternoon doubleheader at Buffalo (22-28, 8-13 Mid-American) Tuesday. The Orange were shutout for the fifth time this season in the first game, losing 4-0, before a monster third inning (four hits, six runs) propelled SU to a 6-2 win in the second.
On the surface, the first leg of Syracuse’s afternoon doubleheader appears to have been a disastrous showing from an Orange lineup whose season can only be described as merely disappointing.
Entering Tuesday, SU ranked last in the ACC in team batting average (.236), slugging percentage (.375, the only ACC team with a sub-.400 mark) and OPS (.736).
Despite escaping the powerful ACC to face a MAC team with a losing record, the Orange again struggled to consistently push runs across the plate.
Syracuse’s first three batters in the third, fourth and fifth innings of Tuesday’s first game were all retired in order. The game’s final two frames were the only times at least one baserunner was on base at the same time.
In the top of the sixth, already down 4-0, Kendall Gaunt stepped to the plate with two outs. The two batters before her, Peyton Schemmer and Vanessa Flores, had walked and singled. The freshman Gaunt ranked second on the team in RBI (14), driving in three the weekend prior against Notre Dame.
Gaunt swung under a pitch. The ball flew straight up and fell back down, landing in front of the pitching rubber and in the glove of Buffalo first baseman Abbey Nagel. Gaunt finished Game 1 with a 0-for-3 line, leaving three runners on base.
In the top of the seventh, with Syracuse down to its final out, Grace Weaver singled to left center. Kaylee Eubanks, who reached first on a single of her own, advanced to second. Lauren Fox came to the plate. She went down swinging. Weaver (one) and Fox (two) were the only three baserunners Syracuse produced in Tuesday’s first game.
In stark contrast, Buffalo scored five of its six runs across the two games with two outs, including all four of the Bulls’ scores in game one.
Buffalo jumped out to early leads in both legs of the doubleheader. In the first game, it was Reagan Terwilliger swiping home in the first inning. In the second, it was a Bri Delaney single to center, plating Emily Gorman.
The Bulls added two more runs in the third inning of the first game, and their fourth and final run in the fifth inning came with two outs. One of Buffalo’s two third-inning scores came on its lone extra-base hit, a Nicole Allen triple to center field that drove in Terwilliger.
Madison Knight, who started Game 1 for Syracuse, pitched a solid line — six strikeouts in six innings, a 3.50 game-ERA and 1.33 game-WHIP — but the Orange provided no run support.
After turning to six pinch hitters in Syracuse’s series finale against Notre Dame Sunday, head coach Shannon Doepking continued to shuffle a lineup searching for consistency.
Jadyn Burney, once the Orange’s de facto leadoff hitter but more recently mired in an eight-game slump and absent from Syracuse’s lineup in the final two games of the Notre Dame series, returned to the starting lineup in SU’s five hole Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Knight, Burney’s replacement atop the order and the Orange’s walk-off hero just 48 hours ago, was pinch-hit for in a crucial, late-game situation in Game 1.
Doepking, in fact, turned to three straight pinch hitters to lead off the sixth inning. Harmony Jackson replaced Lauren Fox, while Kiara Bellido (replacing Knight) and Schemmer (replacing Madelyn Lopez) took at-bats in place of SU’s 1 and 2 hitters in the order.
Doepking reached deep into her deck and turned Bellido for her 11th plate appearance of the season, Schemmer for her 13th, Eubanks for her 30th and Milija Seaton for her 38th. Jackson (56 plate appearances) made it five Syracuse pinch hitters in its first game against Buffalo.
Maybe most alarming? Lopez’s in the first inning and Schemmer’s in the sixth accounted for SU’s only two walks. The one thing Syracuse had done consistently at the plate all season was walk.
The Orange had showcased excellent plate discipline all year, but they collected a mere two bases on balls in Tuesday’s first contest.
A .160 batting average (4-for-25), two walks and no runs don’t sound like a team primed to explode for six runs in a single inning. But of Syracuse’s 21 offensive outs in Game 1, the Orange struck out only twice. They were swinging and missing. But not the ball — instead the barrel.
Syracuse finally found the bat’s sweet spot in the top of the third of Game 2. After an Erika Zamora strikeout, Fox and Gabby Lantier walked. Knight then doubled into the right center gap, the ball skipping off the fence to score Fox and tying the Bulls at 1-1.
Lopez then lined a loud single into right center, scoring Lantier. Syracuse took a 2-1 lead. In a first and third situation, Lopez and Knight perfectly executed a double steal, with Knight sliding into home to give SU a 3-1 lead.
Flores made loud contact, too, singling through the left side of the infield. Sophia Taliaferro entered the game for her as a pinch runner and stole second. Gaunt walked. Then, Lopez scored on a passed ball that ricocheted off the glove of Buffalo catcher Bella Smithson and rolled to the backstop, extending Syracuse’s lead to 4-1.
In a triumphant return to the lineup (2-for-5, 2 RBI, a walk and a steal), Burney singled to center to drive in two more. Taliaferro and Gaunt scored on the play.
Those six runs were all the Orange needed. Senior Julianna Verni went the distance in the circle, pitching all seven innings and allowing only seven baserunners, while fanning five.
Only six games remain for Syracuse to beat the odds stacked against it and clinch a conference playoff spot. The teams capable of pulling off such a miracle are those who can score six runs in one inning. What’s worrisome is Syracuse played 14 innings of softball against Buffalo Tuesday. In 13 of them, they posted zeroes.
