Baseball's Wilmot, Lukach Earn America East Honors

Senior outfielder Rodger Wilmot made the most of his final weekend in the scarlet and white, as he helped the Hawks to two conference victories over UMBC and earned his first-career America East Player of the Week recognition. Meanwhile, freshman Ryan Lukach capped his first collegiate season with the league's Rookie of the Week honor. It was also his first-ever league award.

Wilmot had eight hits, including five doubles, in the Hawks’ four-game series at UMBC over the weekend, driving in four runs and scoring four himself. Lukach went 5-for-10 with three doubles and a triple, driving in four runs and scoring four more.

Wilmot, who finished the season batting .264 in 38 appearances, had at least one hit in each game of the series, registering three hits in each of the Hawks’ two victories. He went 8-for-17 (.471) for the week, slugging .765.

After going 1-for-3 with a single in the series opener on Friday, Wilmot and Hartford broke out in the night cap of that day’s doubleheader. Wilmot reached base four times in the contest, going 3-for-6 with two doubles and two runs batted in. Moments after Mike Aldrich had broken the game open with a three-run double, Wilmot added the fifth tally to the Hawks’ five-run fourth inning when he shot a low line drive down the left field line for a double, plating Aldrich.

The Freehold, N.J. native would then single in the sixth inning before stepping to the plate with two men on and no one out in the eighth. That time, Wilmot smoked a laser beam to the gap in left-center field, plating Chris Suchy and moving Aldrich around to third base. Lukach would send Wilmot plateward later in the inning when he singled to right field.

Lukach, who led off and played center field, went 3-for-4 in the victory, getting aboard five times to spark the offense. He, too, added two doubles to Hartford's whopping total of nine in the game. Lukach scored runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings as the Hawks broke the contest wide open. He drove in a run with a perfectly-placed bunt on a squeeze play in the fourth, later scoring on Aldrich's bases-clearng double.

The freshman tripled and scored in the sixth inning of Hartford's 10-3 defeat in Saturday's first game.

The two-baggers kept coming for Wilmot in Saturday’s season finale, as he hit three doubles, going 3-for-5 with two runs driven in and three runs scored as part of an 11-9 triumph for the Hawks. In the first inning, the senior stepped up with two on and two out, smashing a double that split the gap in left-center and plated Suchy and Matt Walker. He would score moments later on Mark Sorbara’s RBI double, giving the Hawks an early 4-0 lead.

UMBC chipped away at the Hawks’ lead, and would actually grab a momentary 6-5 advantage after four innings. After Suchy led off the fifth with a game-tying home run, Wilmot hit yet another double to left-center, scoring the go-ahead run when Alex Bulger got into the doubles act two batters later.

Then in the ninth, with the two teams tied at nine, Wilmot went with a pitch and sent his third two-bagger of the game to right-center. He moved to third on Bulger’s hard single to left and scored the eventual game-winning run when Jason Freethey lined a base hit up the middle.

Wilmot’s last double was the 30th of his career and the 11th of the season, putting him second on the team behind Walker’s 12. He also finished atop the team and tied for second in the America East with four triples in 2011.

Lukach finished his freshman campaign with a .276 batting average, highest among qualifying Hartford freshmen. He also led his class with 42 appearances in the field, adding 10 games on the mound.