The Massachusetts baseball team took a trip to Maryland for its first series of the 2026 season, sweeping Mount St. Mary’s in three games.
Reece McCarthy, Anthony Tirado and Braden Sullivan all returned to action with game-changing contributions in each contest. The introductory weekend also shone a light on redshirt freshman Ty Fox, bearing witness to long blasts and fundamental baseball.
The Minutemen (3-0) stalled to start their first game Friday afternoon, scraping just one run against the Mountaineers’ (0-3) pitcher, Serigne Sarre. The lefty cruised through five innings before the relievers took over, leaving the bullpen four innings to the finish line. UMass’ Callen Powers delivered 5.1 innings in his opening start, only giving up one run.
Penn State transfer Brandon Wingenroth held down the home team through the middle innings, keeping the Minutemen in striking distance.
With two outs in the top of the eighth, Randen May jumped off the bench, pinch running for the designated hitter, Will Briggs. The West Bridgewater, Mass. native stole second, then scored on a McCarthy single, his second RBI of the day. Jack Beverly doubled, advancing McCarthy; both scored soon after, raising the score to 4-1.
The teams traded two runs each in the ninth. UMass added two thanks to a Fox sacrifice fly to right and a patiently walked-in run. Mount St. Mary’s comeback proved insufficient, giving the Minutemen their first win of the season.
Saturday‘s doubleheader showed just how important big innings can be. Small mistakes change the course of weekends, and the Mountaineers couldn’t catch a break.
As UMass trailed 4-1 in the fifth inning of Saturday’s first game, Sullivan yanked the Minutemen back within reach. The second baseman launched a solo homer to make it 4-2. In the seventh, back-to-back RBI doubles from Fox and Vance Bonior, plus a Gavin O’Brien two-run single, flipped the score from 4-2 Mount St. Mary’s to 6-4 UMass. The Minutemen pushed their lead to 8-4 before the hosts answered with a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning.
Fox launched a two-run homer to right in the eighth, restoring some breathing room. Adam Merritt closed the final two innings scoreless, finishing off a 10-6 win that featured Fox’s three-RBI day and multi-hit games from Bonior and Sullivan.
Fox was the first to score in this game for UMass, reaching on an error before Bonior drove him in. This mirrored how the Mountaineers notched their first run due to an errant throw from behind the dish, eventually adding a cushion to their lead as Evan Meier drove in three runs across the next three innings.
Game two followed a similar script to the rest of the weekend. Mount St. Mary’s jumped ahead first, and the Minutemen responded with the loudest contact of the day.
The Mountaineers struck for three runs in the first two innings, including a run that came home on a center-field error. Fox got UMass on the board in the third with a solo homer, and the Minutemen stayed within striking distance until the home team’s bullpen cracked.
That crack became a full-on collapse in the sixth. Will Briggs opened the inning with a solo homer to tie the game. Beverly singled, and Randen May entered as a pinch runner, moving up on a wild pitch. Fox ripped an RBI single to tie it 3-3. Three singles later, UMass was in position to sweep, up 5-3.
Both teams scored two runs again as Mount St. Mary’s couldn’t surmount the deficit.
UMass’ relief staff cleaned up as Jack Levine’s three scoreless middle innings pushed the Minutemen through to the final frame. Bobby McDonough handled the last inning for the save, and UMass completed the sweep with a 7-5 win.
Co-head coaches Brandon Shileikis and Max Weir earned their first wins as the head of the Minutemen’s staff. Next, they lead UMass into Aberdeen, Md., playing against Siena on Friday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m.
Matt Ford-Wellman can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @MattFW_4.
