The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team split two games at the Dinwiddie Challenge. STAC lost to West Chester University, 7-1, before taking a 5-2 win over Philadelphia University. The Spartans are now 2-1 on the season, while West Chester improved to 2-0, and Philadelphia dropped to 0-3.

Coming off Saturday night's season-opening victory over Slippery Rock, the Spartans were up bright and early for a morning tussle with West Chester. STAC's Anthony Morris locked horns with Golden Rams' starter Nick Stallings, but WCUP pushed across an unearned run in the visiting 4th.

That run held up until the bottom of the 6th, when Giovanni Dingcong walked, stole second, and came in on Rich Cesca, Jr's RBI double, knotting the game at 1-1. With Morris' day being finished after six, STAC's bullpen was unable to keep up the pace, yielding a trio of runs each in the 7th and 9th innings. Meanwhile, Mike O'Neill came in to throw three scoreless relief innings to take the save for the Rams.

Jose Peralta took the loss for the Spartans, who were held to just four hits. Morris allowed just the one unearned run on three hits over his six innings, fanning five while walking one.

After a break for lunch, STAC went to work against Philadelphia U in an afternoon start. The Rams touched starter John Bednarek for a pair in the home 1st, but that was to be all their scoring. Fernando Garza and Michael Melendez had RBI hits for Philly, but the Spartans answered in the 3rd on an RBI single from Joseph Pena and a run scoring double by Dingcong, who came around to score on an error to give the Spartans a 3-2 lead.

St. Thomas Aquinas added a pair of unearned insurance runs in the 5th, with Cesca reaching on an error to bring home Nick Gargan, and Joe Signore following with an RBI single to round out the scoring. That was more than enough for Bednarek, who scattered eight hits while giving up just those two runs over six innings of work to take the win.

Alex Mack tossed a pair of hitless relief innings, and George Navadel earned his second save in as many days with a perfect 9th. Pena and Cesca sparked the offense with three hits each and Dingcong scored a pair in the victory.

The Spartans will conclude their first trip of the season on Monday, with opponent and time to be determined. They will then hit the road again, traveling to Wilson, North Carolina, where they will play four weekend tilts starting on Friday, March 4, against West Virginia State in a 3:00 pm start. The following week, STAC invades the Sunshine State for a six-game Florida trip, the last before taking the field at Provident Bank Park against St. Anselm's College on Saturday, March 19.

- Steve Balsan, St. Thomas Aquinas Sports Information

- Photo by Dorice Arden