The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team built a 10-0 lead at CW Post, only to see the hosts rally late for an 11-10 decision. Post's win prevented STAC from completing a three-game sweep of the series that started Saturday. The Spartans fell to 22-11, while the Pioneers improve to 16-13. More importantly, after these teams entered the weekend tied for first, STAC now stands at 9-2 in the ECC, holding a one-game lead over Post at 8-3.

In other news announced today, the Spartans continued to fare well in East Regional polling, remaining at the #4 ranking from d2baseballnews.com, while sliding one slot to the #6 slot from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. STAC went 4-1 last week, with the only loss coming to nationally-ranked LeMoyne College.

Having won 11 of their last 13 games entering play, the Spartans picked up where they've left off, scoring four runs on four hits in the first inning, with RBI hits from Matt Marotta and Stanley Susana keying the rally. They added two in the second when speedy Frank Salerno and Nick Barbalato took advantage of a failed double-play attempt on a George Wargo grounder, and both came in to score.

STAC continued to pile it on, adding another in the fourth on a Barbalato double, and three more in the fifth, thanks to Andrew Hancsak's two-run homer and another run-scoring hit from Barbalato. Meanwhile, Joe Ferrara was in cruise control on the hill, shutting out the Pioneers on just four hits over the first six as the visitors enjoyed a seemingly-comfortable 10-0 cushion.

Ferrara would show signs of fatigue in the seventh as Post showed signs of life. Tom Tolan's RBI single keyed a four run, five hit outburst (though two of the runs were unearned), making the margin more managable. The Pioneers matched that total in the eighth with four more runs, this time three being of the unearned variety.

Closer Joe DePool was able to escape further damage in the eighth, but was not so fortunate in the home ninth. A pair of Post singles started things off and DePool's control abandoned him, as a walk and a hit batter cut the lead to 10-9, with bases loaded and still none out. DePool went to 2-0 on David Saldana, and that was enough to end his day.

Facing a seemingly impossible situation, Ken Frawley came on and was very nearly the hero. The big righthander came back to fan Saldana, and induce Angel Pimentel to ground to third. The force play at the plate left two down, but Frawley proceeded to issue a walk to Tolan to tie the score, and the following bunt by Rich Maccarone could not be fielded cleanly, bringing home Keith Herring with the winning tally.

DePool was saddled with the loss in relief, to fall to 1-1 while Post's Brian Tardif capped off five scoreless innings from the Pioneer pen to improve to 2-1. Lost in the heartbreaking setback was the tremendous offensive performance from Barbalato, who went 4-for-5 on the day, while Salerno and Stanley Susana added two hits each. Tolan, Kevin Chenicek and Saldana had three hits apiece to pace the home squad.

The Spartans return home tomorrow, Tuesday, April 10, for another ECC matchup when Queens College pays its first call to Provident Bank Park, with first pitch slated for 3:30 pm. STAC will then play a "road" game at PBP with Dominican College serving as the home team on Thursday, April 12, with the following two games being official home contests at "The Bank," a non-conference tilt with Queens on Friday the 13th before welcoming Caldwell College on Sunday, April 15.

Remember, if you can't make it to the park you can follow the Spartans in real time for every home game and select road contests by clicking on the "Live Stats" link (where available) on the team schedule.

East Coast Conference Standings (thru 4/9/12)