UConn baseball wins Game 2 over Xavier, 8-0

By Source / Published on Sunday, 29 Mar 2026 15:37 PM / No Comments / 23 views

UConn baseball allowed just one hit as Cayden Suchy tossed eight innings of shutout baseball to help the Huskies (14-14, 2-0) blank Xavier (8-20, 0-2), 8-0, and win the first home weekend series of the year. Suchy had a no-hitter until the 6th inning, when a single up the middle from catcher Jonathan Fitz passed through the infield.

“I thought he was going to get it done,” UConn head coach Jim Penders said. “It didn’t look like they were getting good swings off him at all and, when they did, they hit them at us, so I was hoping he could get that no-hitter. He came close there, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Penders will have to wait a little longer to see his first no-hitter as skipper.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Penders said. “Every time you see a zero go up, it’s like, ‘You could see something cool today.’ I’m still waiting on that in our uniform.”

Though Suchy may have missed out on history, he worked a commendable outing in his first career game at Elliot Ballpark. After allowing three-plus runs in each of his last three appearances (only two earned his last time out against San Diego State), the left-hander bounced back by striking out ten for the second time this season and allowing just two base runners to bring his ERA back into the twos (2.95).

“I think just trusting the process, trusting my preparation and believing what I’m doing is going to get the job done, and I think today it showed again,” Suchy said.

While Penders said that he was conscious of the situation and in trying to balance potential history with health, Suchy said his focus on achievement subsided as the game progressed.

“I would say in the second inning, I thought about it more than the seventh,” Suchy said. “It kinda just goes away. You just have to think about the next pitch and then go from there.”

Not only was the outing Suchy’s first in Storrs, but the sophomore also earned his first win of the season.

“I think you gotta learn to pitch in this ballpark,” Penders said. “When the wind is blowing in from left field, you really have a heck of an advantage facing a lot of right-handed hitters.”

Even if Suchy hadn’t recaptured his early-season form, the Huskies’ offense took care of business early and didn’t let up. On a windy day at Elliot Ballpark, the UConn offense sailed to 13 hits with four of them going for extra bases.

Two of those extra-base hits came early, as Jackson Marshall and Evan Menzel each left the ballpark with a pair of solo shots in the second inning. Marshall’s extended his team lead to eight, while Menzel’s was his first to clear the fence as a Husky after his first of the year was an inside-the-park home run to complete the cycle against New Haven.

“We did a superior job of getting on top of the baseball,” Penders said. “Despite our first two runs being scored on solo homers, both of those were really hard, and then I thought we did a super job of just getting on top of the ball with some backspin and low liners and hitting balls hard.”

Nater Wachter also added a long ball in the eighth, an oppo-shot to right, to make it the second time this season that he and Marshall, both Southern New Hampshire transfers, have gone deep in the same contest.

Mixed in were four additional run-scoring plays.

Gabriel Tirado shot a low liner down the right field line, one which right fielder Clay Burdette had to slide for to keep from reaching the corner. Though the catcher was thrown out trying to take an extra base, two runs still scored on the hit to double the lead to four.

Before his home run, Wachter’s first RBI came in the sixth on a run-scoring roller on the infield dirt that was placed well enough to find a path to the outfield grass.

Reliever Owen Poole also aided the Huskies an inning later with a pair of wild pitches. After sailing one to the backstop to allow a pair of runners to advance to second and third, respectively, the junior did the same thing again on his next pitch, bringing Rob Rispoli in from third and moving the runner from second over to the hot corner.

Marshall capped off the inning with his second RBI of the day, a hard-hit, swirling liner up the middle that the wind took towards the right-center gap. The long single scored Tyler Minick from third after Poole allowed the DH to reach scoring position for free.

Wachter’s home run closed the scoring at 8-0, and junior Joe Talarico made sure of that by pitching a mostly clean ninth, save for a pair of walks, to preserve Suchy’s shutout.

The Huskies will take the field one final time against Xavier on Sunday, looking for their first series sweep of the season. First pitch for the finale is scheduled for 12:05 p.m. The contest will stream live on ESPN+.

After evening out their record for the first time since their last series win against Old Dominion at the beginning of the month, the Huskies will be looking to move over .500 for the first time this season.

“I think it’s just another game for us,” Suchy said. “It’d be good for our morale, but we’re treating it like another game, and we’re ready to get out there and play with energy and sweep them.”