By SPENCER BATES
DAYTON, OH — The St. Bonaventure baseball team officially put a bow on its season, claiming a final A10 series on the road at Dayton.
The Bonnies finished out the regular season on a hot streak after dropping each of their first seven A10 series’. Claiming a sweep over VCU, and series wins over UMass and Dayton to round out the regular season, resilience is something Bona coach Jason Rathbun has emphasized as a part of his team this year, and it showed late on.
Bona’s red-hot bats carried over yet again into the series against the Flyers, having initially gotten hot in their sweep of VCU and remained hot throughout the UMass series.
In their first game of the weekend against the Flyers, the Bonnies out-hit their opponents 13-8, but it was not until late when the offense truly came to life. After four frames, Bona trailed by a narrow 4-3 margin. But between the fifth and seventh innings the visitors burst to life, putting up a combined six runs, two apiece per inning.
Dayton only managed one run in the bottom of the ninth in its comeback attempt as Bona won 8-4.
Jayce Tharnish led the Bonnies, going 3-for-5 with two runs and an RBI in the first game of the weekend. Lending him a hand was Mike Gunning, who finished 2-for-4 with two runs, an RBI and a home run.
In game two, the temperature of Dayton’s bats caught up to that of Bona’s as the sides finished the affair tied 11-11 in the hits category. However, it was the defense of the Bonnies that played a massive role in preventing the hosts from capitalizing on their hits.
Tharnish and Gunning were once again the most effective offensive options for Bona, with Tharnish finishing 2-for-4 with two runs, an RBI and two walks and Gunning going 3-for-4 with four runs and two RBI.
With four runs in the seventh and three more in the top of the ninth, the Bonnies claimed game two 11-4.
Game three was a seven-inning, high scoring spectacle with Dayton winning the finale by a massive 21-11 scoreline to prevent its guests from leaving with a sweep.
The Bonnies jumped out to a 7-3 lead after two innings, but were incapable of keeping up with the 18 runs the Flyers put up between the fourth and seventh frames.
Bona still managed to record 12 hits in the affair, but Dayton’s 22 left little doubt.
Tharnish, David Marshall Jr., Harrison Kaufman and Morgan Little all recorded multi-hit games in their team’s final game of the season.
