 "Photo: Andrew Howard / Photography Editor")
When sophomore first baseman Jaren Matthews stepped to the plate with the score 0-0 in the bottom of the ninth against Cincinnati, the Rutgers baseball team was winless in the Big East.
As for Matthews, his personal performance this season had been mirroring that of his team’s — it just wasn’t where it needed to be.
But somewhere between the time the sophomore connected on a 0-1 curveball and the time the ball smacked off the scoreboard mounted above the fence in right-centerfield, all of that changed.
By the time Matthews crossed home plate into a crowd of wild teammates waiting to thank him properly for the 2-0 victory, the Scarlet Knights looked like a new team.
“I feel like I got the weight of the world off my shoulders,” Matthews said of his first home run of the season. “I’ve been waiting for that for a long time.”
With the weight gone, the Knights carried the momentum of Matthews’ walk-off homer into a win in the second game of the double header at Bainton Field.
RU’s 7-4 win in game two sealed a 2-1 series victory and revealed to everyone in attendance something the Knights had not seen in weeks.
“If we play like this every weekend,” Matthews said. “We’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in the Big East.”
Setting the stage for Matthews’ heroics was RU’s starter Casey Gaynor, who had nothing short of a breakout game in his own right.
The junior pitched eight innings, allowing just five hits, while recording seven strikeouts and not letting up a run.
“[The series] came down to outstanding pitching,” Rutgers head coach Fred Hill Sr. said, also noting the performance of Cincinnati’s starter Michael Hill, who pitched a gem of his own until Matthews’ home run. “Casey couldn’t have been better in the first game. He did an excellent job.”
With nagging injuries and several rough outings bogging Gaynor down throughout the early part of the season, he sees the game as exactly what he needed.
“It’s refreshing,” Gaynor said. “I struggled for a little bit. But I really was able to build my confidence up and I feel good right now.”
Solid pitching also carried the Knights in game two with freshman pitcher Charlie Law giving RU (11-13, 2-4) the most effective outing of his young college career.
“Charlie’s just been getting better and better,” Hill said. “It’s not an easy jump coming out of high school no matter how good you are … But he’s progressing very well.”
Law notched 10 strikeouts in six and two-thirds innings, but the play of the game came elsewhere in the bottom of the fifth with the Knights leading 3-2.
One batter after Bearcat relief pitcher Andrew Burkett plunked catcher Jayson Hernandez on his first pitch of the game, senior centerfielder Luis Feliz stepped to the plate with the bases loaded.
With one out, Feliz hit a grand slam that knocked the life out of the Bearcats (13-10, 2-4) and all but sealed the game.
“I give all the credit to [Hill],” Feliz said. “He told me to be very aggressive and don’t wait for the first strike …He just said, ‘If you see one, go after it.’ That’s what he told me to do and I took it and used it to my advantage.”
