BALTIMORE, Md. – The Navy baseball team (12-13) could not overcome an early deficit, losing to UMBC (11-9) by an 8-1 score on Wednesday night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
 
Returning to the home ballpark of the Baltimore Orioles for the first time since 2018, the Midshipmen got a multi-hit day from lead-off man Hudson Lehnertz and a trio of scoreless relief outings, but the Retrievers' Matt Ryan registered three RBI and starter Eddie Sargent stifled most of the Navy bats for five innings before turning it over to the UMBC bullpen for four no-hit frames.
 
After both Sargent and Navy starting pitcher Evan Hamill worked out of trouble in the first inning with double-play balls, UMBC put up a five-spot in the top of the second when a bases-loaded sacrifice fly from Jayden Shertel opened the scoring, while an Ian Diaz single, a two-run Navy fielding error and a wild pitch wrapped up the frame.
 
Navy cut into the Retrievers' lead in the bottom of the fourth when Henry Mitchell raked a single through the right side with two on and two out, bringing home Colin Smith from second base.
 
UMBC responded with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth off a Matt Ryan double, but Navy's Zach Ward came in two batters later to induce an inning-ending double play to strand three runners. Ryan got the Retrievers another run in the visiting half of the seventh as well, connecting on a deep fly ball that was Leewood Molessa was able to tag up on.
 
Navy threatened in the eighth when a pair of walks put two runners on with one down, but Joshua Rivera pitched out of the jam before Connor Kelly tossed a 1-2-3 ninth inning to close out UMBC's 11th victory of the season.
 
Sargent earned the win with his one run allowed on four hits, striking out five and walking three in his five innings of work, while Evan Selmer, Matt Clarke, Rivera and Kelly combined to strike out five of the final 15 Navy batters.
 
Hamill suffered the loss after allowing three runs (two earned) in 1.2 innings of work, while Nolan Jorgenson, Aidan Chamberlin, Ward, Jackson Beattie, Zach Powers and Tyler Grenn all made appearances on the mound, with Ward recording 1.2 shutout frames and Powers and Grenn holding the Retrievers hitless over the last two frames.
 
Paul Kostacopoulos Postgame Comments
"It could be lost in the game that this is a great experience for these guys to come over here (to Oriole Park). A big thank you to the Orioles for doing this and allowing us to come over here and play. Again. it's a good experience. In 10 years, they're going to be on the deck of a ship or they're going to be hanging around in their company and say 'hey, we played at Camden Yards'. So, we've got to take some things out of here that are real positive, especially in a 50-game season. When we got four big ones coming this weekend (in league action), that's what we're going to do."
 
"A takeaway from tonight was we had some guys that haven't challenged the strike zone very well previously and they did tonight. The guys that came on, like Power and Grenn challenged the zone, I thought Beattie did a good job challenging the zone as well, and that's how baseball is played. Those guys are all young, two of them are freshmen and one of them hasn't pitched much as a junior, but I think they can build off of that. That's a takeaway when you play a 50-game season. You got to have some things that you take away from these games and I thought we did that for the most part. Even Chamberlin, who hasn't pitched very much, he'd got in the strike zone better and that's something that we got to build off of in the second half of the season. Sometimes in these midweek games you have to find somebody or a couple of people that can help you down the road, and hopefully that was the start of some good things with some younger guys."
 
Game Notes
• Navy is 24-29 in the all-time series against UMBC.
• Navy is now 1-4 when playing at Camden Yards.
• Alex Smith tallied a career-high three walks in the contest.
• Alex Smith saw his 12-game hitting streak snapped but extended his on-base streak to 13 games, while Lehnertz now has a 12-game on-base streak and Eduardo Diaz has reached base safely in 11 straight contests.
• Wednesday marked Hamill's first career start, while his two strikeouts matched a career high.
• It was Lehnertz's third multi-hit game this season.
 
Up Next
Navy travels to league foe Holy Cross on Saturday, April 1 for a noon doubleheader before heading to service academy rival Army on Sunday, April 1 for another two contests starting at noon.