SANFORD, Fla. -- The Brandeis baseball team dropped its 2012 University Athletic Association opener today, falling to Emory University, 6-0. The Judges dropped to 4-4 overall on the season, 0-1 UAA, while the Eagles improved to 8-6, 1-0.

Emory rookie pitcher Connor Dillman was the story of the game, holding Brandeis to five hits and striking out 13 to tie a UAA record. The mark was set in 2004 by Dan Ruef of Case Western Reserve.

The game was scoreless through the first five innings, though Brandeis had a pair of opportunities to open the scoring in the early going that they were unable to convert. In the second, rookie 1B Kyle Brenner (Brookfield, Mass./St. Peter-Marian) led off with a single and was bunted to second, while sophomore SS Dom Schwartz (San Francisco, Calif./Lowell) opened the third with a double down the right-field line. Unfortunately for the Judges, they were unable to advance the runner any further in either case, with Dillman striking out two of the next three hitters with Schwartz in scoring position. 

The Judges had one more chance to score in the sixth, when junior catcher Chris Ferro (Walpole, Mass./Walpole) doubled to center field with one away and moved to third on a groundout, but Dillman again got out of the frame with another K. He allowed just one more baserunner the rest of the way to improve to 4-1 on the season.

Brandeis grad student Pat Nicholson (Walpole, Mass./Walpole) kept EU off the board through the first four innings before the Eagles broke through in the fifth with a pair of unearned runs on an infield error and a single by senior 1B Jay Page. Emory had the bases loaded in the inning, but Nicholson stranded the runners with a strikeout of his own. In the late innings, EU sophomore catcher Jared Welch, produced a pair of big hits, a two-run double in the sixth that chased Nicholson and a two-run home run to left in the eighth off of rookie Brent Edmunds (North Hampton, N.H./Winnacunnet). Nicholson suffered the loss, going 5.2 innings and allowing four hits and four runs, two earned. He struck out  three, walked five and hit three batters.

The Judges return to action Monday morning at 11 a.m. against Washington University.