Strong Pitching Not Enough as Spartans Drop Finale at LIU Post, 3-1

Strong Pitching Not Enough as Spartans Drop Finale at LIU Post, 3-1

The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team came up short by a 3-1 count in the East Coast Conference series finale at LIU Post. The Spartans were swept in the series with their losing streak extending to eight straight, dropping their record to 9-16 overall and 1-7 in the ECC, with Post improving to 17-9, 8-0.

Post got on the board in the home second on a two-out passed ball, and added another in the fourth on an RBI single from Zach Fritz to take a 2-0 edge. The Spartans cut the deficit in half in the visiting fifth when Brian Donnelly came home on a balk, but the Pioneers got that back in the bottom half on Dave Brehm's run-scoring single.

Aside from that offensive output, the story of the game was the starting pitchers as STAC's TJ Gregory locked up with LIUP's Joshua Loeschorn. Gregory kept the Spartans in the game with 7.1 innings of four-hit ball before giving way to Justin Bayens, who retired the final two batters in the eighth. That was not enough to overcome the effort of Loeschorn, who threw 103 pitches and allowed just three hits in earning the complete game win.

The Spartans are now off until Friday when they return to action with a four-game ECC weekend series against rival Molloy College. STAC hosts the opener at Palisades Credit Union Park in a 3:30 start, then the series shifts to Long Island for a Saturday twin-bill, before wrapping up in Pomona on Sunday afternoon.