The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team took its third straight victory, earning a 7-3 decision over Bloomfield College at Provident Bank Park. Kevin Rentas started and earned the win for STAC, which improved to 12-6 overall while Bloomfield fell to 1-10.
St. Thomas Aquinas hit the board first, bringing home two runs in the bottom of the second inning without the benefit of a hit. A pair of Deacon errors helped Ken Kirshner and Efrain Bautista come home to give the Spartans the edge.
After retiring his first seven batters, wildness hurt Rentas in the third as he walked the numbers eight and nine hitters, both of whom came around to score. STAC quickly regained the lead in the bottom half, again aided by their opponents as Stanley Susana reached on an error and eventually scored on a wild pitch.
Once again, STAC would tack on to their lead without a hit in the fifth, as Nick Barbalato was hit by a pitch and after stealing third, trotted home on a thowing error by Bloomfield's catcher. Rentas would yield to Joe Grimaldi in the sixth, with the Deacons trimming their deficit to 4-3 against the Spartan reliever.
STAC's tandem of Rich Baerga and Nick D'Angelo - who combined to produce the lone run in Sunday's 16-inning victory over Dowling - came off the bench to spark the Spartans once again, coming up with back-to-back one-out singles. Both would eventually come home to score, giving the Spartans some breathing room at 6-3.
D'Angelo, who entered the game in the top of the fifth, provided an insurance run in the eighth. His leadoff double deep to left completed his 2-for-2 afternoon, and he proceeded to steal third and score on Andrew Romanella's RBI grounder. Jon Scott would come on to close out the Spartan victory with a scoreless ninth.
St. Thomas Aquinas returns to action this Thursday, March 28, for the start of a four-game East Coast Conference set with the University of Bridgeport. First pitch is set for 3:00 pm at Provident Bank Park, and if you can't make it to the game you can follow all the pitch-by-pitch action on LiveStats.