The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team topped Dowling College, 12-4 and 4-3 to win their second straight East Coast Conference title. Tourney Most Outstanding Player Derek Hirsch's walkoff double sealed the Game 7 win. The Spartans clinched an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament while improving to 34-15, dropping Dowling to 33-15 overall.

For the second straight season, St. Thomas Aquinas took the hard road to the title, losing their tournament opener against Molloy, 6-1 on Thursday, to fall into the Loser's Bracket. STAC rebounded with a 4-2 victory Friday morning, eliminating Bridgeport, before exacting revenge on Molloy later that afternoon, shutting out the Lions by a 4-0 score to send another foe home and enter the final day of competition.

Dowling took a somewhat easier route to Day 3, with a dominant 14-0 win over Bridgeport in Thursday's opener and an equally convincing 12-3 win over Molloy on Friday. Thus, entering Saturday's competition, the Golden Lions were in the Winner's Bracket, meaning that STAC faced the daunting task of needing to beat the hosts twice to retain their championship of a year ago.

STAC started strong in the day's first game - Tournament Game 6 - with three first inning runs off 9-game winner Tom Bammann. Stanley Susana led off with a walk, advanced on a Kenny Kirshner single, and scored when Rich Baerga's bunt single was thrown away by Bammann, allowing Susana to score. Derek Hirsch's sacrifice fly and Stephen Sunday's ground out each brought runners home to put the visitors up early.

In the 3rd inning, Mike Apreda capped off three straight STAC singles with an RBI hit, to give his team a 4-0 cushion. Starter Mike Gonzalez allowed just two hits through four innings but ran into trouble in the 5th after walking leadoff hitter Rob Veltre. Mike Rizzitello followed with a single and Vinny Orlando's two-run double cut the margin in half for the Golden Lions, bringing Gonzalez' day to a sudden end.

With the tying runs in scoring position and one down, reliever Nick May uncorked a wild pitch, bringing Rizzitello in and moving the tying run to third. May rebounded to strike out Jon Cruz and avoid further trouble, and carried that momentum into a perfect 6th inning.

Bammann, meanwhile, was settling in but with two on and one out in the 7th, Apreda provided an insurance run with another RBI single, making the score 5-3. May would again sail through a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom half and his team's offense would do the rest.

A hit batter, an error, and a bunt single would load the bases with nobody out, and Baerga's sac fly brought Bammann's day to an end. After recording the second out, reliever Rob Rose unleashed a wild pitch to bring in a run, and Nick D'Angelo and Nick Gargan each came up with two-RBI hits, and the rout was on. STAC tacked on another unearned run in the 9th and Dowling finally touched May for a run in the bottom half, but it was far too little for the hosts.

May allowed just the one run in five outstanding innings of relief to improve his season record to 4-1, while Bammann lost for just the second time this season, falling to 9-2. Kirshner, Baerga, and Apreda had three hits each in the Spartans' 17-hit onslaught.

That set the stage for a tournament Game 7 clash and a performance for the ages, as standout closer CJ Ferriggi got his first start and a showdown with counterpart Kyle DeMeo. Per the tournament format, the teams switched, with St. Thomas Aquinas batting as the home team in the penultimate game.

A Mike Rizzitello single, a sacrifice, and a throwing error by third baseman Joe Boland in the top of the 3rd gave Dowling its first lead of the day. With runners at first and third and one down, the Golden Lions attempted a double steal but it was defended perfectly, with Kirshner gunning down Adam Schuster at the plate, and Ferriggi escaped further damage.

That would prove to be big as the Spartans answered in the bottom half. Nick Gargan was hit by a pitch with one down and Susana followed with a titanic home run to right-center, clearing the 20-foot high fence, giving the Spartans the 2-1 edge. DeMeo remained in control despite the homer, allowing just two hits over his first six innings of work.

With Ferriggi's previous longest outing being 4.1 innings, there was no telling how far the bearded bullpen ace could go, but he seemed to gain momentum in the middle innings, allowing just one hit and retiring 10 straight Golden Lions over the next four innings of work.

St. Thomas Aquinas plated an insurance run in the 7th, as Gargan's perfect safety squeeze single scored pinch runner Kadeem Octave to make the score 3-1. The Golden Lions managed a single in the 8th, but Ferriggi remained unthreatened despite a pitch count climbing well over 100.

DeMeo would finally give way in the 8th, but the Spartans were unable to add to their lead, which would lead to a thrilling finish. Jon Cruz led off the Golden Lions 9th with a walk and was replaced by JC Brandmeier on a fielder's choice. RJ Going then stepped to the plate with an outstanding at bat, fouling off several pitches before hammering a 2-2 offering deep over the left field fence to tie the score. Ferriggi's day would end after the 9th inning and 125 pitches, but his gritty effort would be crucial in the Spartans' fortunes.

Rob Tompkins would come in to work a strong 10th inning and St. Thomas Aquinas went after reliever Nick Persad in the bottom half. Kirshner was hit by a pitch leading off, and Baerga placed a perfect push bunt single down the first base line, putting two on with none out.

Dowling turned to Rose from the pen again, but his reception was no more friendly than in the earlier game, as Hirsch jumped on the first pitch, driving a towering double into the left field gap, scoring Kirshner with the championship run.

Ferriggi allowed three runs, two earned, on six hits in nine innings of work, striking out nine and walking two. With his perfect inning of work, Tompkins picked up the win to improve to 3-1. Hirsch, Susana, Baerga and Gargan had two hits each for St. Thomas Aquinas.

In a tournament with many STAC heroes, it was Hirsch who got the nod for Most Outstanding player, hitting safely in all five games and batting .381 on 8-for-21 from the plate, with four RBI and five runs scored.

The Spartans will now await the NCAA Selection Show on Sunday night to find out the site and the opponent of their first tourney game. Of the six bids available in the region, STAC and Felician College (CACC) have earned their conference's automatic bid as conference champions, with Wilmington and Franklin Pierce likely to have locked up two of the three at large bids. The Northeast-10 Conference championship will be decided on Sunday, as Dowling awaits that result in hopes of capturing the final at-large slot.