UMES Baseball captured its first win of the season Sunday (Photo - easternshorehawks.com)

SALISBURY, Md. — University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s baseball team put up 12 runs on Sunday against the Lafayette Leopards to capture its first win of the season at Arthur W. Perdue Stadium in Salisbury.

The Hawks’ 12-4 win came in the first game of the doubleheader, the second of which they lost 6-2.

“It feels good to get that first win under our belt” Hawks Coach Brian Hollamon said. “We [the coaching staff] have been preaching the little things needed to win, and it’s good for our team to see it pay off by playing a complete game.”

Eight Hawks starters managed to reach base and the only one who did not still had an RBI. Juniors Ryan Rotondo (Warwick, Rhode Island) and Joey Nicastro (New Market, Maryland) paced the offense, combining for five RBIs on four hits. Freshmen Dillon Oxyer (Pasadena, Maryland) and Jordan Torres (Brooklyn, New York) both had multiple hits in the game, with Torres notching two RBIs as well.

Senior pitcher Toby Hoskins (North East, Maryland) started and struck out four batters with three earned runs, while Chris Melrath (Rising Sun, Maryland) added three more strikeouts. Hoskins earned the win.

Freshman Avery Tunnell (Dover, Delaware) notched an RBI single while sophomore pitcher Marty Tolson, Jr. (Stafford, Virginia) surrendered just one earned run in four innings. Senior Christian Rose (Martinsburg, West Virginia) added on two relief innings with no earned runs.

UMES scored off of an error in the second inning to take the lead after Lafayette put up the first run of the game. The Shore added another run in the third before scoring six runs and getting ten batters to base in the fourth. Torres’ first single as a college player and Rotondo’s double helped the Hawks to the large victory.

The second game was a different story. An RBI single by Tunnell put the Hawks up early, but Lafayette responded with six runs before the Hawks scored again in the ninth. The Leopards scored six runs on six hits for the decisive win.

UMES will next face Navy on the road Wednesday and will return to Perdue Stadium this weekend for a series with NJIT.