The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team posted 10 unanswered runs to erase an early deficit and held on to defeat Felician College, 10-9 in Lake Worth, Florida. Ken Frawley tossed three scoreless innings of relief to earn the win and Joe Antenucci added three hits and three RBI. STAC has now won three straight and five-of-six to improve to 5-4. Felician suffered its eighth straight setback to fall to 4-11 overall.
The Spartans found themselves in an early hole thanks to a two-out Felician rally. RBI singles by Joe Petosa and Mickey Zudonyi off STAC starter Eric Cooper helped stake the Golden Falcons to three runs in the top of the first. St. Thomas Aquinas would quickly trim the deficit in the bottom half off Felician starter DJ Stinsman, as George Wargo's one-out double brought around Nick Barbalato and Antenucci to close the gap to 3-2.
Cooper narrowly avoided more damage in the second, walking the bases full with two out before retiring Zudonyi to put down the threat. Wildness put the Spartans in another jam in the third, as reliever Nick D'Angelo walked his first two batters before yielding to Ken Frawley, who was able to quell the uprising, as Felician stranded seven of their 15 total runners left on base over the first three frames.
STAC pulled ahead for the first time in the fourth, as a Wargo leadoff walk, a passed ball and an RBI single by Andrew Hancask knotted the affair at 3-3. After Derek Hirsch reached on a fielder's choice, erasing Hancsak, Stanley Susana came up with the big stroke, as his two-out double plated Hirsch.
Frawley continued to keep the Golden Falcons in check and the Spartans broke the game open with an uprising in the fifth. Efrain Bautista's leadoff single was followed by walks to Barbalato and Nick Salerno, chasing Stinsman to the showers. Reliever Steven Harrison didn't fare much better, as an Antenucci single to right brought home two. With two out it was Hirsch's turn to play the hero, as his matching single to right brought home two more runs, extending STAC's margin to 8-3.
Frawley was replaced after the fifth with a job well done, yielding just one single over three scoreless innings of work and retiring his last seven batters faced. Tom Enright came on and worked out of trouble in the sixth and the Spartans tacked on two more, as Bautista singled and came home courtesy of a pair of errors, and Antenucci's third hit of the day was also his third RBI, bringing home Salerno. Those runs would stand to come in very handy.
Felician would not go down without a fight, pushing across three in the seventh. A Korey McGuiness single knocked in two off righty Dan Diaz, and Mike Roestenberg walked Jimmy Simpson to force in a run after being brought on to make the score 10-6. With the tying run at the plate, Joe DePool took the hill and retired Mike Farrell to escape further damage.
Wildness and continued late-inning woes almost conspired to undo the Spartans, as Felician plated three more runs in the eighth without the benefit of a hit. Three STAC relievers combined to yield four walks and hit two batters, trimming the once-comfortable cushion to 10-9. In the end, STAC skipper Scott Muscat was forced to turn to ace Matt Marotta, who walked in a run but fanned two and left the bases juiced to end the threat. The Spartans have now been outscored 29-11 from the seventh inning on over their first nine games.
Marotta set the Golden Falcons down in order in the ninth to end the 3:39 marathon, nailing down his second save of the season and lowering his season ERA to a sparkling 0.54. Frawley earned the victory to improve to 1-1, while Stinsman was tagged with the loss to fall to 0-3. The strike zone proved elusive all day as in all, 14 pitchers (nine for STAC) combined to walk 22 batters (12 by STAC) and hit five others (four by the Spartans). St. Thomas Aquinas pitching also combined to fan 10 Felician batters, while doing down to just six themselves.
Today's game was the Spartans' first of six in as many days on their Florida swing. They will play Bloomfield College tomorrow, Saturday, March 10, and once again sqaure off with Felician on Sunday, March 11. The swing winds up on March 14 and the team will return north, when they host Southern New Hampshire University in a pair of twin-bills at Provident Bank Park on Saturday and Sunday, March 17 and 18. Both double-headers are scheduled to start at 12:00 noon.
Please note - select games on the Spartans' Florida trip will be available on Live Stats. Just check the schedule page and click on the Live Stats links where available to follow the Spartans in Florida in real time!