The Beacons opened up their season March 15th in Fort Myers, Florida by participating in the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic baseball tournament. This was the first time this new assortment of UMB players had competed together against a team from another school outside of the gym in the Clark Athletic Center, and the rust showed. When asked to sum up the trip, head coach Mark Bettencourt came back immediately with one word, “Inconsistency.”
The Beacons opened up against Suffolk University in a double header that saw UMB go down 17-2 in the first game and then come back to play well in the second game only to lose 4-3 with the winning on second base. Coach Bettencourt said, “…that first game against Suffolk is not an indication of how good our team can play, but we played well the second game and just came up short….” The next day the team took its first victory of the season against New England College.
After losing two games to the weather the next day the Beacons were looking to upset the nationally ranked Ripon Redhawks. Coach Bettencourt had looked forward to this match up to see what his team was made of, “I was hopeful that a win against at team like that would help us get on track, and even though we lost it showed us that we can play with any team in the country….” In fact the Beacons did play well against the Redhawks and put up 11 runs, however, the offense from Ripon was too much and the Beacons lost by 4 runs.
The next day the Beacons split a double header against Fontbonne University. In the first game UMB fell 10-7 but came back fired up in the second contest to the tune of a 15-4 rout. The next day UMB faced off with the University of the South in a game that would see the Beacons smash 5 homeruns and still lose 19-14. This loss was especially hard for the coaching staff to swallow, “…if you would have told me before the game that we would hit 5 homeruns and score 14 and lose, I would have said you were crazy….”
Following that loss and in need of a win to boost morale the Beacons played against a division II team, Florida Gulf Coast University. The Beacons played well and held the lead for part of the game, but the pitching was shaky and they fell 14-5 in a game that stayed close until FGCU came up with some runs late in the game.
With their record standing at 2-5 the Beacons were shocked and disappointed heading in to their double header with Augsburg University from Minnesota. This disappointment got worse when the offense stalled and the Beacons got trounced 13-1 in the opener. The coach only had this to say about game one, “I hope I never see a baseball game played that poorly again…we are a better team than that, and I hope we got that out of our system….”
In fact the team did bounce back strong, and put up 22 runs in the next game but due to time constraints and a good hitting Augsburg team the game finished in a rare 22-22 tie. “That’s the way that that game needed to end….” said Coach Bettencourt, “…we gave them runs, they gave us runs, we got clutch hits, they got clutch hits…It was appropriate that it ended in a tie….” What the coach did not know at that time was that the rains would come and that would be the Beacons’ last game in Florida.
In the end the Beacons come back with some impressively good numbers, some bad, and a 2-7-1 record. “The record does not indicate what kind of team we have here, there are a lot of positive things that can be taken from this trip….” said Bettencourt, “…right now we are hitting the ball well and our pitchers are throwing well, all we need to do is sure up the defense and we are going to be a tough team to beat.”