The St. Thomas Aquinas baseball team took an East Coast Conference split against Queens College, dropping the opener by a 5-0 count before bouncing back for a 15-4 victory. The Spartans are now 13-10 overall and 4-3 in the ECC, with Queens standing at 7-8, 1-2.

Queens starter Joe Broderick locked up with STAC's Chris Cepeda in the opener, with all of the fireworks coming in the top of the 3rd. Two hits, two walks, and a pair of hit batters brought Cepeda's day to an end after just 2.1 innings, and Billy Riches' deep fly to center was nearly reeled in by Mike Morgan but fell in, driving in the final two runs in a five-run rally.

That was to be all the scoring for the game, with Broderick holding a no-hitter until Anthony Maisano's bunt single in the 6th. The Spartans would settle for just three hits in seeing their three-game winning streak snapped.

Game two told a very different story, though the Knights did break on top via a Ryan Bender RBI single in the 2nd. Maisano and Anthony Shkrelja provided RBI hits in the bottom half to give the Spartans their first lead of the day, but Queens tied the score at 2-2 in the visiting 3rd.

Joey Pena's two-run triple keyed a six-run uprising in the bottom of the 3rd, and five more in the home 4th broke the game open for St. Thomas Aquinas. Pena, Maisano, and Mark Shkrelja drove in three runs each in the 14-hit onslaught, making a winner of last week's ECC Pitcher of the Week Frankie Moscatiello, who improved to 3-1 on the season.

The four-game weekend series concludes with a double-header Sunday at Queens starting at 1:30 pm. The Spartans return home on Tuesday, hosting Kutztown University for a 3:30 pm start.