The Brandeis baseball team started off this week’s games with a sweep of WPI on Saturday. The Judges outscored their foes, the WPI Engineers, with a combined 20-12, including a 12-5 rout in the first game.

The Engineers started off the first game with two runs right away. Brandeis bounced back with a two-run homerun by Chris Ferro ’13. Brandeis continued to outscore WPI in almost every subsequent inning. WPI never got more than one run per inning after the first, while the Judges hit anywhere between one and four runs in all but the fifth inning.

This included a three-run homer by Tony Deshler ’11 in the third, which brought the lead to 5-3. After getting the game to 8-5 by the sixth inning, Brandeis shut out WPI during the top of the sixth and paved the way for a four-run bottom to close the game at 12-5 after a no-run seventh.

The second game started off one-sided, but ended with a nail-biting score of 8-7. Behind starting pitcher Mike Swerdloff ’13 Brandeis took a commanding 5-0 lead after three innings. Additionally Swerdloff struck out a career-high 11 batters. By the fourth inning things weren’t perfect as the Engineers earned their first run of the game. After another tricky inning in the sixth the Judges maintained a strong lead of 8-2. The Engineers took advantage of the change in pitchers in the seventh and almost tied the game up. After five runs were scored relief pitcher Pat Nicholson ’11 earned the final two outs.

The Judges earned their third win of the week on Wednesday in a 9-5 victory as they hosted MIT. Brandeis took a lead early on in this nine-inning game, never being ahead by less than a few runs. Designated hitter Eric Rosenberg ’11, catcher Kenny Destremps ’12 and second baseman Sean O’Hare ’12 all scored doubles bringing in runs.

In the second inning the Judges tore the lead wider with four more runs after MIT made the miscalculation of loading the bases. Rosenberg earned his second double of the day, clearing the bases for three RBIs and running himself, after O’Hare earned an RBI single to bring the lead to 7-0. MIT put up four more runs between the fourth and sixth inning but the Judges answered back with two runs of their own. After a final run in the top of the ninth, the Judges won and pitcher Colin Markel ’14 earned his first win of the season.