The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team completed its first weekend of East Coast Conference play with a 5-1 victory over Dowling College in Brookhaven. Joe Ferrara earned the win as the Spartans took all three games in the set, extending their overall streak to four.
STAC - ranked #7 in this week's NCBWA East Regional poll - improved to 15-8 overall and 3-0 in the ECC, while the Golden Lions slipped to 12-10, 1-3. The fourth and final conference meeting of the teams is scheduled for Wednesday, April 18 on Long Island. The teams will play a non-conference tilt at Provident bank Park two days later.
The Spartans broke on top right away, as Frank Salerno singled, stole second, advanced on a sacrifice, and scored on a Joe Antenucci ground out - his first of three RBI on the day. Dowling answered in their half of the second, as Joe Candela doubled and later scored on a JC Brandmaier grounder. It was the Golden Lions' first tally in 18 innings, since they posted a four-spot in the opening inning Saturday.
From that point the starters would take over, as Dowling's Ryan Mikalsen and STAC's Joe Ferrara kept the score at 1-1 through six innings. The Spartans would take charge in the seventh, however, knocking Mikalsen out of the box. With one out and the bases loaded, pinch-hitter Mike Russo broke the tie with an infield hit, scoring Stanley Susana, who reached on an error. Antenucci followed with a two-run single, plating Salerno and Nick Barbalato to give STAC a 4-1 cushion.
Ferrara kept tossing blanks as the Spartans tacked on another in the eighth, with Barbalato capping a string of three straight singles off reliever Anthony DeLa Rosa, bringing home Susana to give his team a four-run cushion.
After a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth by Ian Schneider, Ferrara turned the ball over to Joe DePool, having scattered eight hits and yielding one run in his 8.0 innings of work. While he did not qualify for the save, DePool worked out of trouble in the final frame to preserve the victory. Ferrara improved to 1-1 while Mikalsen fell to 0-2, with Salerno, Marotta and Susana each contributing two hits to STAC's 10-hit attack. After allowing four runs in the top of the first inning of game one Saturday, the Spartans outscored Dowling 27-1 over the remainder of the weekend, holding their formidable Long Island foes to one run over their last 25 innings.
STAC returns to action on Tuesday, March 27 when their ECC schedule continues with their first meeting of the season at the University of Bridgeport, with first pitch scheduled for 3:00 pm (Note - game time Tuesday changed to 3:30 pm). The Spartans will host the Purple Knights three days later at the same time as UB visits Provident Bank Park for the first time on Friday, March 30, then they travel for a big twin-bill at Molloy on Saturday, March 31, before returning to PBP to complete the weekend set with Molloy on Sunday, April 1.
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.