The St. Thomas Aquinas baseball team beat Dowling 3-2 in tonight's ECC contest.  Matt Smith scored on a squeeze play by Matt Marotta in the eighth inning to give STAC the 3-2 lead.  Mark Fochesato had the save for STAC as he struck out Dowlings final three batters in the ninth.

In a pitching duel through five innings; Dowling got on base in the top of the sixth with back to back doubles.  The Spartans answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the inning behind a Smith sac fly to score Mike Apreda.  STAC added a run in the seventh to take a 2-1 lead as Frank Salerno hit an RBI single to score Joe DePool.   The Golden Lions made a late run in the eighth as Eddie Squeri singled with two on to tie the game. 

In the bottom of the eighth, Smith led off with a single and advanced to second on an error.  Smith stole third and scored off Marotta's single.  Marotta went 2-for-4 with an RBI while Apreda was 2-for-3 with a run.  Kevin Ryan went 6 innings giving up 1 run and striking out 4 batters.  David Schwartz picked up the win for STAC with 2 hits, 1 run and 1 strike out in one inning. 

STAC will travel to Dowling for a double header on Saturday and a single game on Sunday.  Saturday's double header begins at 12:00 noon while Sunday's game is at 1:00 PM.