Mason Baseball beats Dukes with offensive explosion to open series Friday

Starting pitcher T.J. O'Grady led his squad to a 9-5 victory Friday afternoon against the JMU Dukes in the first of a three-game series. (John Powell)

The George Mason Baseball team defeated the nation’s top offense, the Dukes of James Madison, 9-5, taking the first game of their three-game home series Friday afternoon.

Solid pitching from T.J. O’Grady and Jake Kalish, along with phenomenal hitting from Zack Helgeson and Chris Cook made the win look easy.

JMU started off strong in the top of the first with a solo homer from Jake Lowery, but Mason quickly answered with two homers and a total of four runs in the bottom of the first. 

Cook hit his third homer of the season to lead off the inning.
Two runs later, Helgeson gave the crowd yet another reason to get on their feet, pounding another ball over the fence, giving him his sixth home run of the season. 

The Dukes tried to push their way back into the contest in the third inning with Haynes completing back-to-back steals of second and third base to put himself into a position to score. He went on to score on a throwing error by the catcher, Jim Leonardo, making the score 4-2 still in favor of the Patriots.

The Patriots made some more noise in the bottom of the fourth putting up another four runs.

Kalish led off with a single. One out later, Nick Allen got to first on a walk, which was closely followed by a double from Chris Cook, scoring Kalish.  Brig Tison came up to bat next and hit a triple, scoring Allen and Cook. Tison went on to make it home in the inning due to a wild pitch.

Through five innings Mason led JMU with a score of 8-2.
The Dukes put up one run in the top of the sixth when Matt Tenaglia came home on a single from Joe Townsend.
JMU continued to push back into the game putting up yet another run in both the top of the seventh and the top of the eighth.

Haynes bunted to lead off the seventh, advanced to third on one wild pitch and went on to score on another.
The Patriots looked as if they were going to increase their lead in the bottom of the seventh, but instead they left three men stranded at the end of the inning.

Tenaglia put up a solo homer for the Dukes in the top of the eighth to bring JMU within 3 of the lead.

The crowd went wild in the bottom of the eighth when Helgeson all but sealed the deal hitting his second homerun of the game.

Madison failed to score in the ninth, giving the Patriots a well-earned 9-5 conference win.

T.J. O’Grady (2-1) got the win, allowing three hits and two runs in five innings pitched, while Alex Valadja (3-2) received the loss.

Mason improved to 11-15-1 overall and 2-8 in the conference, while James Madison fell to 18-9 overall and 8-5 in the conference.

Going into this game, Madison lead the nation in offense, averaging just over ten runs a game. Mason held them to five.

The Dukes got revenge on the Patriots on Saturday, however, evening the series with an 11-9 victory. The third and final game of the series will be played Sunday at Spuhler Field at 1 p.m.