Happenings tend to become very unpredictable when one mixes an anticipated Blues intercollegiate baseball match, a losing record, and a large abundance of water. No one who saw Wednesday’s slosh-fest against McMaster would argue this point.

The Toronto Varsity Blues have been hungry recently to get back on the winning side of things after suffering a three-game losing streak. The opportunity to do so came this past week, as East York’s Stan Wadlow Park hosted a face off between the Blues and divisional rival McMaster Marauders.

The marathon game, which took close to five hours to play and turned into a war of attrition, ended in the 16-4 thumping at the hands of McMaster.

The rainy, foggy contest saw first-year Blues pitcher Jake Gallo take the mound against rookie southpaw Mark Ferguson.

“The game was a wet one,” said Gallo of the soggy playing conditions. “There were a lot of wet balls.”

Gallo allowed four earned runs on six hits, while striking out seven, in four innings of work. He received a no-decision in the contest.

His counterpart, Ferguson, kept the Blues in check for the majority of the game, striking out seven batters, while only walking one, in six innings.

The match was a slugfest to say the least. The Marauders drew first blood and secured a 4-1 advantage early. Errors by the Blues’ infield and a solo homerun by Marauder Jeremy Paikin in the fourth accounted for McMaster’s lead.

The sixth inning saw a small turnaround in U of T’s fortunes. The timely hitting of catcher Corey Cormier and Steve Greening, aggressive base running, and infield errors on the side of the Marauders caused the Blues to tie the game 4-4 going into the seventh inning.

Both teams encountered several controversial officiating calls over the course of nine innings as well. For example, fourth-year pitcher Mark Taplin, after relieving Gallo, held down the Blues fort for several innings; but one call certainly sticks out. Taplin hit a batter in the latter innings, yet the umpire did not give the batter the free base because the batter didn’t try to get out of the way of the pitch.

There were countless objections by the whole Marauder roster, but the umpire turned a deaf ear.

“The whole game was very touch-and-go tonight,” said Blues assistant coach Andrew Green.

With the game tied 4-4, this game seemed destined to become an extra-inning classic, but then came the ninth inning. Errors from Blues infielders Harmo Brar, Daniel Lee, and Jordan Ardanaz caused the Blues to lose a great amount of confidence and momentum. The Marauders batted around twice in the inning and scored 12 runs to blow the contest wide open.

“Well, the weather had nothing to do the loss,” said Green. He then added that two positive observations were made during the game: the pitching was solid through eight innings and the timely hitting in the early innings was a good sign.

Momentum swung back and forth wildly in this contest, and McMaster was able to capture and hold onto it during the all-important ninth inning.

The Blues must now try to put memories of McMaster’s huge inning behind them, and need a significant winning streak to get them back into the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) playoff race.