The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team rallied to defeat Felician College, 8-5 at the NCAA East Regional in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Spartans will now play Dowliing Sunday at noon, and if they win, will play either Dowling or SNHU in the final game. St. Thomas Aquinas now stands at 36-16 overall, while Felician's first NCAA Tournament appearance ends with a 30-20 overall record.
In Day 3 action in the East Region. Southern New Hampshire stayed alive with a 4-3 victory in Tournament Game 7, eliminating Wilmington University. STAC's victory in Game 8 advances them to Sunday's action. Game 9 is in progress at this writing, with unbeaten Dowling facing SNHU. If Dowling wins, the Spartans would have to beat the Golden Lions twice to capture the region. If SNHU wins, STAC would need to defeat Dowling in Game 10, then defeat SNHU in game 11 to advance to the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship in Cary, NC, next week.
Felician jumped out to a 5-2 lead as the Spartans squandered early opportunities, but three runs in the 5th and three more in the 8th lifted STAC to its 10th victory in its last 11 post-season elimination games.
The upstart #6 seed Golden Falcons, having lost their opener to SNHU before ousting #2 Franklin Pierce, got on the board in the 2nd inning against STAC starter Matt Petro. Jay Collazo led off with a single and Brennan Price walked. With one out, Korey McGuiness was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Ralph Caccavale then hit a potential double play ball but second baseman Mike Apreda had the ball roll under his glove, allowing two runs to score. Gabe Fellin followed with a squeeze bunt to bring in another run, and the Golden Falons were up 3-0.
STAC had its share of opportunities in the early innings, with Rich Baerga leading off the home 1st with a triple but being stranded on third. In the 3rd inning, Deven Del Priore led off with a walk, stole second and scored when Apreda's grounder was thrown away by shortstop Aaron Brill. The Spartans would proceed to load the bases with nobody out, but starter Stephen Paladino got out of the jam with no further damage and his squad holding a 3-1 lead.
Once again, Felician would threaten in the 4th on a Jordan Tackett infield hit followed by a McGuiness walk. After the runners were sacrificed into scoring position, Petro gave way to reliever Nick May, who yielded a sac fly to Fellin, making the score 4-1.
Kenny Kirshner helped STAC answer in the bottom half, leading off with a single, stealing second, and advancing on a throwing error before Nick D'Angelo would bring him in with a sacrifice fly to trim the margin to 4-2.
A two out rally in the 5th got the run back for Felician as Collazo singled, Price was hit by a pitch, and Tackett came through with a big RBI single, reestablishing a three-run cushion.
St. Thomas Aquinas would finally draw even in the last of the 5th, with Stanley Susana being hit by a pitch with one down to start things off. Derek Hirsch legged out an infield hit and Kirshner lined a hard single to left, setting the table with the tying runs.
CJ Ferriggi brought Susana in with a sac fly for the second out and, after Paladino uncorked a wild pitch to advance the runners, D'Angelo came through again, with his single to left center driving in two runs to tie the score at 5-5.
May held Felician in check before giving way to Brian Tompkins, who worked out of a bases-loaded, two out jam in the top of the 7th and STAC threatened again in the bottom half. Chris Goetz led off with a pinch hit single off reliever Billy Rogers and pinch runner Joe Grimaldi promptly stole second before moving to third on a wild pitch.
Rogers unleashed what appeared to be another wild pitch, but a quick rebound to McGiniss a flip to the pitcher covering the plate was just in time to nail Grimaldi trying to score the go-ahead run. Rogers worked a pair of scoreless relief innings for the Golden Falcons, but the Spartans would finally break through against Matthew Facendo in the 8th.
Ferriggi, who moved over from third base to pitch a scoreless 8th inning, drew a one out walk and D'Angelo and Del Priore followed with singles, loading the bases with Spartans. Stephen Sunday came on to pinch hit and worked out a walk, bringing Ferriggi in with the go-ahead run. Baerga followed with a two-run single to left, giving his team an 8-5 cushion entering the final frame.
After issuing a leadoff walk, Ferriggi made no mistake, retiring the next three in order including two via strikeout, sending the Spartans into the final day of regional competition for the first time.
Kirshner had three hits and D'Angelo added three RBI in the 12-hit outburst, and Ferriggi picked up the win to improve to 2-1 on the campaign. Facendo was tagged with the loss, falling to 3-2 on the year despite the three-hit effort from Scott De Jong.