The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team settled for a four-game split in North Carolina, dropping their final contest by a score of 4-3 in 11 innings. The Spartans lost their second straight to fall to 5-3 overall, with WVSU improving to 3-5.

Note - St. Thomas Aquinas retained the #3 ranking in the East Regional poll released by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association (NCBWA) on Monday, March 7).

After St. Thomas Aquinas opened the weekend with a 4-1 victory over West Virginia State on Friday, the teams settled in for what would prove to be a lengthy rematch. STAC jumped on top in the 2nd when an error allowed Michael Morgan and Rich Cesca, Jr. to score. The Yellow Jackets answered with solo runs in the home 2nd and 4th to even the score off Spartan starter John Bednarek.

Joe Signore put the Spartans back on top in the 6th, with his RBI single bringing in Nick Gargan, but WVSU answered again in the bottom half against reliever Jose Peralta to knot the score at 3-3.

That would be all the scoring until the bottom of the 11th. Closer George Navadel, working his third inning of relief, was victimized by a pair of STAC errors, including an errant throw that brought home the winning run with two out.

Gargan and Giovanni Dingcong recorded three hits each and Signore added a pair for St. Thomas Aquinas. STAC's bullpen allowed just one earned run over 6.2 innings of stellar relief despite the setback for Navadel, his first of the season.

The Spartans are now off until Saturday, when they will begin a trip to Florida with a pair of games, the first of seven they will play on the final leg of their season-opening trip south.

- Steve Balsan, St. Thomas Aquinas Sports Information

- Photo by Dorice Arden