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The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team scored six runs in the 7th inning to take a 7-4 East Coast Conference victory at Provident Bank Park, as Derek Hirsch's 3-run double set the tone, improving the Spartans to 29-12 overall and 15-6 in the ECC, with Dowling dropping to an idential 29-12 overall mark and holding on to first place in conference play at 17-4.

St. Thomas Aquinas is now two games out of first place in league play but still needs to sweep the final three games of the series to take home the top seed. The teams shift to Long Island on Saturday, May 3, for a noon double-header before wrapping up the regular season in Rockland on Sunday.

Each team started its ace and as expected, runs were hard to come by in the early going with STAC's Rob Frank locked up with the ECC's ERA leader in Dowling's Tyler Badamo. Frank set down the first nine Golden Lions in order, and Badamo yielded just two hits through three scoreless innings.

Dowling's first runner came with one out in the 4th when Frank hit Andrew Abreu with a pitch and RJ Going followed with a line single. With two down, Rob Veltre fouled off three pitches with a 1-2 count before turning on an inside pitch for a three-run homer off the right field foul pole, putting the visitors up 3-0.

STAC got on the board in the bottom half when Derek Hirsch and Kenny Kirshner started with singles, but Hirsch was caught trying to steal for the first out. Stanley Susana followed with an RBI single but Badamo was able to escape further damage.

St. Thomas Aquinas threatened against Dowling's ace but couldn't break through again before the Golden Lions posted a run to make the tally 4-1 in the 7th on Adam Schuster's two-out run-scoring single. The wheels were about to come off for Badamo, however, and the Spartans finally took full advantage.

Mike Apreda and Rich Baerga drew walks to start the inning against the suddenly struggling right-hander, and Nick Gargan's perfect bunt single loaded the bases with nobody out. Hirsch, this week's ECC Player of the Week, jumped on the first pitch, smoking a bases-clearing double into the gap to tie the score and send Badamo to the showers.

Reliever Kyle DeMeo did not fare much better, walking Kenny Kirshner on four pitches before a Susana fly out to right moved Hirsh to third with the go-ahead run. Stephen Sunday's ground single put the Spartans ahead for the first time, and Nick D'Angelo added a huge blow with a two-out, two-RBI single to provide STAC's final runs.

With Frank turning the ball over as the pitcher of record on the plus side, Nick May came from the bullpen and was very strong, allowing just one hit in picking up his first save of the season. Frank improved to 4-1, with Badamo dropping to 7-3 on the campaign.

Game time Sunday at Provident Bank Park is 1:00, but pre-game festivities include Senior Day honors and it is also STAC baseball's annual Wounded Warrior Project day, with those events beginning at 12:15 pm.