SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – The Union College baseball team dropped a pair of Liberty League intra-divisional games on Sunday at the Central Park "A" Diamond, falling to the University of Rochester by the scores of 6-3 and 9-3.
 
Junior Cooper Ames paced Union (16-11, 4-5 Liberty League) with three hits on the day, followed by five teammates with two hits apiece. Classmate Andrew Keaveney and first-year AJ Cutler both drove in a team-best two runs apiece and first-year Dylan Swarts scored three of the team's six runs on the afternoon.
 
Game 1: Rochester 6, Union 3
 
Rochester scored five straight runs in the second and fourth innings to take control of game one and start the day with a 6-3 win. Keaveney went 2-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in and Cutler had two hits, scored once and drove in one for the home team.
 
Both teams put up runs in the opening frame, with Union responding to one Yellow Jacket run with two of its own. Rochester played small ball to manufacture a run in the top of the first, but Union came back with a two-out tally thanks to a hit batter, a single from Cutler and a Keaveney two-run double.
 
Rochester provided another answer in the top of the second, scoring twice thanks to a Union error and an RBI double by Jackson Reed. Union stranded runners on base in each of the next three innings before finally driving a run home in the fifth on a Cutler RBI double. Cutler's double was the last time a Union player got to scoring position, however, as the home team managed only two singles over the final four frames.
 
Sophomore Jacob Skarlis (1-4) allowed six runs (three earned) on 10 hits over seven innings to suffer the loss, while junior Alex Oppenheimer tossed two innings of scoreless relief to finish the game. Colby Cruser (1-0) threw 4.1 innings of scoreless relief to pick up the win for Rochester.
 
Game 2: Rochester 9, Union 3
 
The Yellow Jackets scored nine times in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to break open a close game and pull away for a 9-3 win.
 
After three scoreless innings, Union opened the scoring in the fourth on a Cutler sacrifice fly that scored Swarts. Rochester came back with two in the top of the fifth, but the Garnet Chargers knotted the score at two on an RBI single by junior Caleb Miller. However, the Yellow Jackets scored three runs in the sixth and tacked on four more in the seventh to take a 9-2 lead.
 
Junior JT Psirogianes led off the seventh inning with a homer to get Union back within six, but that was all the home team could muster the rest of the way.
 
Junior Jack Klein (0-3) allowed five runs on seven hits in five innings for Union. Mark Aaronson did not allow an earned run over six innings to earn the victory.
 
Union will be back on the diamond on Tuesday with a non-conference matchup with SUNY Oneonta beginning at 4 p.m. at Central Park.