The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team won Saturday's East Coast Conference double-header at Queens College, 6-2 and 9-1. Matt Kostalos fanned 10 to win the opener, and Rob Frank earned his team-record 15th career victory in the nightcap as the Spartans improve to 23-12 overall, and 13-6 in the ECC. Queens dropped to 7-18, 2-13 with the losses. STAC has won the first three games of the four-game series.
Combined with Dowling's split at LIU-Post on Saturday, the Spartans now close to within two games of first place in the ECC, with the two squads playing a four-game showdown on the regular-season's final weekend. STAC has also reduced its Magic Number to three to clinch a spot in this season's ECC Tournament and a chance to defend their conference championship of a year ago.
After Thursday's series opener saw STAC claim victory in a wild 23-8 slugfest, Saturday's first game started more quietly with the game being scoreless until the top of the 3rd when the Spartans drew first blood. With two on and two out, Derek Hirsch came through with a clutch two-run double to put the visitors on top. Teams would go back to trading zeroes until STAC opened up some breathing room in the top of the 7th.
A Queens error - one of six on the game - set the table and Stanley Susana brought in a run with an RBI double before coming in to score on Kenny Kirshner's RBI single, putting the Spartans in a 4-0 lead.
They would tack on another in the 8th on Stephen Sunday's run scoring single, and while the Knights would counter with a pair of runs in the bottom half off starter Kostolos and reliever Brian Tompkins, Kirshner would squeeze home a run in the top of the 9th to provide the final margin.
Kostolos worked 7.1 strong innings, scattering three hits while walking just two to go with his 10 strikeouts to improve to 3-1 on the season, while Tompkins allowed just the one unearned run in 1.2 relief frames. Susana, Sunday, Nick D'Angelo, and Rich Baerga had two hits each for STAC.
Baerga would add a 4-for-4 effort in game two, starting the affair with a lead-off double and coming in to score on Derek Hirsch's single. One inning later, his two out triple would bring in two more runs, staking his team to a 3-0 lead and the Spartans were off and running.
Hirsh doubled for his second hit of the game to lead off the 3rd and came around on a Kirshner single, and Nick D'Angelo would add a run-scoring single to make the tally 5-0. Baerga would lead off the 4th with another hit and come in when Mike Apreda was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to put STAC in a comfortable 6-0 lead.
That lead looked particularly comfortable as Frank sailed through a perfect first three innings, retiring his first 10 opposing batters before Queens would account for its first hit. It would also lead to the Knights' lone run, an unearned tally due to a throwing error.
Queens would return the favor with interest one inning later, with the Spartans grabbing an 8-1 lead thanks to a pair of unearned runs. St. Thomas Aquinas would round out the scoring in the 6th on a Brian Pasquale RBI grounder, with Frank leaving after five innings and turning the ball over to James Callahan and Joe Grimaldi for a pair of scoreless innings of mop-up to complete the combined two-hitter.
STAC's bats have come to life over the first three games of the series, banging out 39 hits while outscoring their opponents from Flushing by a 38-11 margin.
The Spartans - ranked #5 in the East in the NCBWA poll - return to Provident Bank Park to close out the four-game set on Monday, April 21, in a 3:30 pm start. STAC will then host non-conference tilts with Caldwell on Tuesday, and Concordia on Thursday, with both starting at 3:30 pm.
On behalf of the St. Thomas Aquinas College Department of Athletics, we would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Easter!