The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team overcame a rough final inning to claim a 9-8 East Coast Conference victory over Molloy College at Mitchell Field. The Spartans, ranked #23 in this week's National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) poll and #29 by Collegiate Baseball, improved to 25-9 overall with an 11-2 conference mark. Molloy dropped to 23-15 overall while remaining in first place in the ECC with a 15-2 mark.

After two scoreless innings, the Spartans broke through on Molloy starter Anthony Catinella in the visiting third thanks to a pair of walks and a run-scoring wild pitch to make the score 1-0. They added single runs in each of the next two frames with Joseph Pena driving in a fourth-inning tally on an infield hit, and Anthony Shkrelja's RBI single giving the Spartans a 3-0 lead through five innings.

Starter Chris Cepeda was dominant through the first six innings, scattering three hits while retiring 14 consecutive Lions during one stretch. His teammates opened some breathing room on Anthony Shkrelja's two-run homer in the seventh, though Michael Wall's solo shot in the bottom half narrowed the gap to 5-1. STAC continued to tack on insurance runs with a pair in the eighth on RBIs from Cris Ruiz and Pena, and two more in the ninth on Mark Shkrelja's run scoring single and Bobby Morse's RBI grounder.

Though the lead was seemingly comfortable at 9-1 entering the hosts' final at-bat, Cepeda yielded after eight outstanding innings and Molloy found new life. Jack McCarty crashed a three-run homer with one out, Angelo Navetta drove in another with a single, and Elijah Leerdham brought home two more with a double to trim the gap to 9-7, with still just one out. Sean Hogan singled home another run to close to 9-8, but closer Angelo Baez took the hill with runners at first and third to retire the final two batters to earn his sixth save of the season, with Cepeda improving to 4-3 with the win. Anthony Shkrelja went 3-for-4 with three RBI to lead STAC, and Giovanni Dingcong had a pair of hits and scored four runs.

The four-game weekend series shifts to Pomona for a noon double-header on Saturday at Palisades Credit Union Park, before finishing back on Long Island on Sunday. With 11 ECC games remaining in the regular season, STAC's magic number to clinch an ECC Tournament berth is now down to four.