The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team swept a non-conference double-header against the College of Saint Rose, 17-1 and 2-1, at Palisades Credit Union Park. The Spartans, ranked #25 in the nation and #3 in the East in this week's National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) poll, improved to 17-7 while extending their winning streak to four games, while Saint Rose dropped to 9-9 overall. STAC also completed a season-series sweep over the Golden Knights, having won the previous meeting by an 11-3 final on March 10 in Cary, North Carolina.
St. Thomas Aquinas had been idle since Monday, when they rode a pair of last-inning rallies to an East Coast Conference sweep over Queens College. With a bye week in their conference slate, the Spartans hosted CSR and fell into a quick hole on Nicholas Teitter's first-inning RBI single. STAC answered quickly and often, reeling off five runs in the bottom half and six more in the second.
Joseph Pena led off with a double and scored to tie the game on Nicholas Lucchesi's RBI grounder. Anthony Shkrelja's sacrifice fly put STAC on top to stay, and the turning point came when Bobby Morse's apparent inning-ending pop-up was lost in the sun, dropping for a three-RBI hit to make the score 5-1. Lucchesi and Tyler Patane each drove in tallies in the second frame, and Michael Morgan's grand slam opened an 11-1 lead.
STAC tacked on a run in the third and two more in each of the next two innings, with Anthony Shkrelja's two-run homer highlighting the onslaught. That was ample cushion for starter Jason Salva who allowed just that one run on four hits in five strong innings to improve to 2-1. Chris Ruiz went 3-for-3 in the 17-hit barrage, and five Spartan hurlers combined to allow just five hits.
Game two was a very different story as St. Thomas Aquinas ace and ECC Pitcher of the Week Frankie Moscatiello dueled with Golden Knights starter Stephen Hill. Ruiz continued to swing the hot bat with a second-inning, two-run homer to put STAC on top, but those were the only runs they were to plate in Hill's seven innings. Moscatiello continued his dominance in yielding just one hit through six, though he did allow an unconventional unearned run in the seventh.
After a leadoff walk, an errant pickoff attempt by the Spartan righty allowed Andrew Pedon to advance to third. That would be key when Teittel struck out but reached first on a wild pitch, with Pedon cutting the cap to 2-1 by scoring on another wild pitch. With another runner reaching on a strikeout/wild pitch, Moscatielllo settled down to fan the next two batters, recording a rare four strikeouts in one inning.
A leadoff double by Connor Farri put the tying run in scoring position in the eighth, but two more strikeouts would end Moscatiello's day with eight exceptional innings, allowing one unearned run on two hits while striking out 12, reducing his season ERA to 0.73. Angelo Baez shook off a two-out walk in the ninth to earn his third save of the year, placing him second in the ECC in that category.
The Spartans travel to Kutztown University for another non-conference tilt on Tuesday before returning to ECC action with a four-game weekend set against New York Institute of Technology, with STAC hosting Friday and Sunday around a Saturday road double-header.