By Amsu Warner

The Norfolk State Spartans men’s baseball team went head-to-head against the Virginia Commonwealth Rams on Mar. 7 at The Diamond. The Rams proved they were too much for the Spartans to handle beating them 6-4 in a non-conference loss.

The Spartans, who are 0-11, received multi-hit games from freshman infielder, Alsander Womack, redshirt junior outfielder, Justin Hayes, senior outfielder, Tony Leite, and redshirt junior outfielder, Syeed Mahdi. As a team, Norfolk State posted a season high in based hits.

However, the Rams had a great fourth-inning and outstanding pitching to down the Spartans. The Spartans took a major blow from the Rams by a four-run third that included two hit batters and two Ram hits. Also, after two walks and a single that loaded their bases, VCU’s Brett Willet, hit an RBI single that got the scoring started in the third-inning.

VCU’s offense kept pushing when Mitchel Lacey and Steven Carpenter both were hit by pitches with bases loaded to force a pair of runs. This resulted in a great lead over Norfolk State 5-0. The Spartans, however, did not back down so easily and fought back in the fifth-inning. Mahdi walked and Hayes reached on an infield single with two outs. Following this, Womack then doubled both runners home.

NSU cut down their deficit within the sixth-inning. Leite tripled and scored on Redshirt Senior Justin Burrell sacrifice fly to bring Norfolk State back in the game making the score 5-3. The Spartans attempted to continue to cut down the two point lead, but VCU added another run off of Liam Hibbits’ RBI double in the seventh-inning to make the score 6-3.

Womack and Hayes both finished 3-for-5 for Norfolk State, which was their first three-hit game of the season. Mahdi and Leite also went 2-for-3 as Mahdi scored a pair of runs. Womack had two RBI and seven Spartans recorded at least one hit while at bat.