The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team dropped the opener of the 2014 East Coast Conference baseball tournament to Molloy College, 6-1 at Dowling College in Brookhaven, NY. The Spartans will now play the University of Bridgeport on Friday, May 9, at 9:00 am in the Loser's Bracket. #4 Bridgeport fell in the tourney opener to top seed Dowling, 14-0.

If the Spartans win they will play again at approximately 3:00 against the loser of the game between Dowling and Mollloy at noon. STAC fell to 30-15 with the setback, with Molloy improving to 20-22.

Molloy would score all the runs they would need in the first four batters of the game, as a walk and three singles off starter Rob Frank put the Lions in an early 2-0 lead. Frank worked out of further difficulty, but Mollloy would add another run in the 4th while starting hurler Max Schonfeld kept the Spartans in check through the first five innings for a 3-0 advantage.

STAC got on the board in the 6th with a Derek Hirsch RBI single, but Molloy would chase Frank with three more runs in the 7th inning to open the final margin of victory.

Rich Baerga went 3-for-3 with a walk to lead the STAC offense but it was not enough as Frank fell to 4-2 on the season while Schonfeld improved to 6-3. Kevin Podell had three RBI to pace the Molloy attack.