Georgia State baseball falls to UMASS Lowell at home

Release from Georgia State Athletics:

Matt Rose homered twice but Georgia State fell to UMass Lowell 9-2 Sunday at the GSU Baseball Complex to split the four-game series.

Rose, the junior infielder and Preseason All-American, hit a pair of towering solo blasts for his fourth and fifth home runs of the season. He entered the weekend tied for the NCAA lead in homers. The Melbourne, Fla., native has 10 RBI in eight games.

Junior catcher Joey Roach had a single and a double to cap a week in which he went 9-for-19 with two homers, two doubles and nine RBI in five games.

But UMass Lowell (2-2) jumped on Georgia State starter Garrett Ford (0-1) with six runs in the second inning, aided by an error, and the Panthers (4-4) could not recover.

River Hawks starter Geoff DeGroot (1-0) allowed just one run on four hits over seven innings.

“I told the team, we’ve played eight games, and we’ve won four and we’ve lost four. We’ve done some really great things, and there are other things where we are a step slow or need to improve on,” head coach Greg Frady said.

“We’re kind of at a crossroads. We need to increase our aggressiveness, and when that happens, we’re a better team. When we’re playing catchup like were today, confidence seems to be down and we lose energy. I think that’s an identity we’re still searching for as a team.

“We’ll regroup, practice and get ready for Georgia Tech on Wednesday.”