WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Navy baseball team (4-6) could not hold on to an early lead on Wednesday afternoon, suffering a 7-1 loss to Georgetown (8-5) at the Washington Nationals Youth Academy in Washington, D.C.
 
Starting pitching was the key for both teams early on, as the Midshipmen got four shutout innings out of starter Liam Golden, while Kai Leckszas made his collegiate debut for the Hoyas with a 4.2-inning outing that saw him limit Navy to one unearned run and three hits. Despite Golden keeping the GU bats cold to start, the Hoyas eventually broke through against the Navy bullpen as Zaid Walker notched three hits and Christian Ficca added two more base-knocks to lead the Georgetown lineup.
 
Navy grabbed its lead in the second inning when Colin Smith's fly ball into the outfield was dropped and a ground ball off the bat of Brock Murtha was misplayed three pitches after, allowing Smith to advance home from third base. The Mids nearly added to the advantage in the third when back-to-back hits from Nick Burch and Eduardo Diaz put two runners in scoring position with one down, but a double play wiped out Navy's opportunity.
 
After Golden and Jackson Beattie combined to allow just three Hoya hits through the first five innings, Georgetown broke out in the sixth when Ubaldo Lopez doubled off Beattie, while a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt followed by singles from Ficca and Austin Kretzschmar helped push across Lopez and Owen Carapellotti and hand GU the lead.
 
Georgetown added insurance in the seventh inning with Michael Eze's second home run of the season against Navy, as Eze smacked a two-run, no-doubt homer to left field. The Hoyas added three more runs in the frame off a Ficca double and sacrifice flies from Carapellotti and Kretzschmar.
 
The four Georgetown relievers backed up their offense by retiring 13 of the final 15 Navy batters to come to the plate and not yielding a hit to the Mids over the final three innings.
 
Despite Golden and Leckszas not factoring into the decision, Golden finished by allowing just four baserunners in his four scoreless frames and striking out two Hoyas, while Leckszas also recorded two strikeouts in his 4.2 innings of work. Beattie ended up on hook for the loss after allowing two runs (one earned) in his 1.2 innings, while Garret Keough picked up his second win of the campaign against Navy, surrendering just one hit and punching out two batters in 1.1 innings of relief.
 
Paul Kostacopoulos Postgame Comments
"The positive takeaway was that Golden had a really good start for us. It was also only a 2-1 game after the sixth before they got five runs in the seventh. It was a solid game aside from them putting up a five-spot there. Offensively, we're not in sync right now and we have to continue to work on that and figure that out and take some ownership of some of our bats, collectively but also individually. Some of them need to put up better at-bats. We had two or three big scoring opportunities early and we needed to stretch that lead from 1-0 to 3-0 or 4-0, and we just didn't do it."
 
"Going into the Princeton series, we got our rotation set up the way we want to and we've got to get back to practice. We've got to get our offense going at this point as we're still trying to find the correct lineup, because some guys are struggling for sure. It's just something that's a work in progress, and we got to keep going at it."
 
Game Notes
• Georgetown shaved Navy's lead in the all-time series between the teams to 65-50.
• Diaz extended his team-best hitting streak to six games and his on-base streak to 12 contests with his third-inning single.
• Navy's starting pitcher has gone three-plus innings in the team's last eight games.
• Wednesday marks the third scoreless outing of Golden's career.
 
Up Next
Navy hosts Princeton in a three-game set this weekend, March 11-12. The Mids and Tigers are slated to play a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Saturday before closing the series on Sunday with a single game at 1 p.m. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+, with Scott Wykoff calling all the action.