The St. Thomas Aquinas College baseball team rallied for a 7-5 victory over LIU Post, lifting the Spartans to the East Coast Conference regular-season championship and the top seed for next week's conference tournament. STAC has now won 20-of-23 games overall and is ranked #24 in the nation by the NCBWA, improving to 33-10 overall and 18-3 in the ECC. LIU Post, which has also clinched one of the four berths to the ECC Tournament, is now 25-18, 13-8.
In a battle of two of the hottest pitchers in the ECC, STAC's Chris Cepeda squared off with James Varela of LIU Post. Over his past five starts, Cepeda was 4-0 with a 0.72 ERA, while Varela led the conference at 10-0 overall, and was second in ERA behind only Spartans ace Frankie Moscatiello. STAC put runners at second and third and one out in the home first but did not score, and the Pioneers strung together three hits to take a 1-0 lead on Anthony Vaglica's RBI single. The hosts escaped further damage when Giovanni Dingcong caught Zach Fritz' fly ball and threw a perfect strike to Cris Ruiz at home to nail Michael Manzione for a double-play.
Vaglica homered to left-center in the top of the fourth to make the score 2-0, and Varela was dominant as expected, allowing just two hits through five scoreless frames. Once again, Vaglica was in the mix with a sixth inning sac fly to up the edge to 3-0, but Cepeda continued to battle out of serious trouble and the Spartans solved Varela the third time through the order.
Joseph Pena led off the bottom of the sixth with a double and moved to third when Dingcong's homer bid came up just shy of the 413 foot mark in center field for a long out. Anthony Shkrelja took a called strike three and it looked as though STAC might come up empty, but Tyler Patane hit a booming double to deep center field, and Cris Ruiz knotted the score by taking a 1-1 offering into the bleachers in right field.
Post got back on top when, with two out and a runner at second, Joe Spitaleri's apparent inning-ending grounder was thrown away by shortstop Pena, allowing the go-ahead run across the plate. Working well past the 100 pitch mark, Varela continued into the bottom of the seventh and was greeted by a leadoff double from Juan Adorno. One out later, Pena atoned for his error by lacing a game-tying double into the gap in right-center, tying the score at 4-4.
With the momentum on the home squad's side, Varela's 122nd pitch of the day proved to be his last, as Dingcong jumped on his first offering, crushing a mammoth two-run shot to left, clearing both the Palisades Credit Union Park scoreboard and the street surrounding the stadium, giving the Spartans their first lead at 6-4.
Chris Pennell came on in relief of Cepeda for the eighth and struggled with his control, with a walk and a wild pitch putting runners at second and third with none out. From there, ECC saves leader Angelo Baez emerged from the pen and allowed a run-scoring single from Fritz but recorded the next two outs to keep the margin at 6-5. In the bottom half, STAC added an insurance run when a bizarre botched exchange between Pioneers catcher Vaglica and reliever Mike Stiles went awry, allowing Cris Ruiz to score from third.
That was more then St. Thomas Aquinas would need, as Baez needed just six pitches to retire the side in order and record his 10th save, improving Cepeda to 6-3 on the campaign. Varela struck out eight and walked just one but it was not enough to keep from absorbing his first loss to fall to 10-1.
The weekend series now shifts to Long Island for a noon double-header on Saturday before returning to Palisades Credit Union Park for a 2:00 pm regular-season finale on Sunday. Senior Day festivities will begin at approximately 1:30.
This title marks the seventh consecutive season that St. Thomas Aquinas has won either the regular-season championship, tournament championship, or both, taking the regular-season crown in 2012, '13, '16, '17 and '18, and taking home the tourney title in 2013, '14, and '15. With the top seed, STAC will face either Mercy or Bridgeport in the tourney opener, with those teams squaring off for the final berth this weekend. Post will take the third seed and is guaranteed a first round match up with Molloy College, which will serve as the host of the weekend affair at Mitchel Field in Uniondale from May 10-12.
Late Update - by virtue of their double-header sweep over Mercy on Saturday, the University of Bridgeport has clinched the fourth and final ECC Tournament Berth and will be the first round opponent of St. Thomas Aquinas in next weekend's opener on Thursday, May 10, at 3:00 pm. The event opens with LIU Post facing Molloy at 12:00 noon.