Box Score Wesleyan Knocks Out Southern Maine 4-1
HARWICH, Mass. -- The University of Southern Maine baseball team's bid for a third straight trip to the NCAA Division III World Series was cut short Friday morning as the Wesleyan University Cardinals defeated the Huskies 4-1 in an elimination game of the NCAA Division III New England Regional Tournament being played at Whitehouse Field.
The loss ends the Huskies' season with a 32-15 overall record. The Cardinals, 30-10 overall, will continue on to another elimination game tonight (7:45 p.m.) against M.I.T. The tournament is an eight-team, double-elimination affair with the winner going on to Appleton, Wisconsin, for the NCAA Division III World Series.
Junior Pete Rantz (Boca Raton, Fla.) stifled the Huskies' offense pitching seven shutout innings. Rantz gave up five hits and did not walk a batter while striking out two to improve his record to 5-2.
Senior Sam Elias (Norwood, N.J.) was nicked for an unearned run in the eighth inning, and got out of jam in the ninth after hitting the leadoff hitter and walking the next batter to bring the potential tying run to the plate.
Sophomore Ellis Schaefer (Newtown Square, Pa.) led the Wesleyan offense going 3 for 3 and scoring a run. Sophomore Nick Miceli (West Hartford, Conn.) and junior Marco Baratta (Tenafly, N.J.) had a pair of hits apiece. Miceli had the lone extra-base hit - an RBI double in the seventh inning - in the game.
Senior right-hander Andrew Richards (South Portland, Maine) got the call on the mound for the Huskies. Richards went the distance allowing four runs (three earned) on 11 hits and one walk while striking out a career-high 11. No Southern Maine batter managed multiple hits off of Rantz and Elias.
Wesleyan grabbed a 1-0 in the top of the first as senior Donnie Cimino (Westwood, N.J.) singled with one out and moved to second on a single by junior Guy Davidson (New York, N.Y.). Richards got a strikeout for the second out, but senior Sam Goodwin-Boyd (Florence, Mass.) singled home Cimino with the game's first run.
That lone run stood up until the seventh inning as Richards and Rantz matched zeroes on the scoreboard over the next five innings.
The Cardinals took advantage of a couple of Husky miscues in the seventh inning to tack up three insurance runs. Miceli's RBI double with one out brought in the first run of the inning. Cimino reached on an infield error that brought the second run across the plate. Miceli scored an unearned run on another Husky infield miscue with two outs.
Southern Maine had a golden opportunity in the eighth inning to get back into the game loading the bases with no outs on an infield error, a walk and a single by sophomore Damon Wallace (Gorham, Maine). Elias got the pitcher's best friend - a double play - that allowed an unearned run to score. After a single by junior Sam Dexter (Oakland, Maine/Messalonskee) put runners at the corners, Elias got the final out on a fielder's choice.
The Huskies got the tying run to the plate in the ninth after Elias hit sophomore Matt Bender (Walpole, Mass.) with a pitch and walked rookie Devin Warren (Smithfield, Maine/Messalonskee) to lead off the inning. However, Elias would get the next three batters to end the game.
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