TUFTS WINS NESCAC TITLE AFTER RAIN POSTPONES GAME SEVEN

COLLEGE BASEBALL FINAL SCORE
NESCAC Tournament
Game 6: Trinity 9, Tufts 8 (10 inn.)
Game 7: Tufts vs. Trinity (canceled by rain)

At Medford, MA
Sunday, May 12, 2002

Game 6: Trinity 9, Tufts 8

Game Box Score

Records - Tu, 25-8-1; Tr, 26-10.

MEDFORD – The Tufts baseball team has been crowned the NESCAC champion after rain forced the cancellation of the tournament's seventh game on Sunday. The Jumbos will represent the conference in the 2002 NCAA Division III tournament that starts later this week.

After winning their first two games of the NESCAC tournament on Friday and Saturday, Tufts entered Sunday needing just one win against Trinity College to claim the title. But the Bantams beat the Jumbos, 9-8 in 10 innings, in game six to force a final game. Under a steady rain, game seven was delayed twice for work to be done on the field, and then finally was called at approximately 5:30 pm with Trinity leading 4-2 after four and a half innings. NESCAC rules require that the game must be nine innings to be official, so the game was nullified and conference tie-breaking policies were implemented. The first was each team's record in the tournament, and both Tufts and Trinity were 2-1. The next tie-breaker is which team won the winner's bracket game, and that was Tufts over Trinity, 6-2, on Saturday. Therefore, Tufts was named the 2002 NESCAC champion.

The teams played an exciting game six under a steady rain. Trinity scored seven runs in the second inning to take an 8-0 lead, Tufts rallied to tie the score at 8-8, then Trinity freshman LF Jeff Natale (Hamden, CT) singled home senior CF Greg Spanos (Auburn, MA) for the eventual game-winning run in the top of the 10th.

After Natale led off the game with an opposite-field solo home run to right, Bantams Rob Dolliver (Norwich, CT) and Jayme Dorr (Osterville, MA) led off the second with back-to-back opposite field home runs to right that ignited a big inning. Trinity had nine hits in the top of the second, including six in a row before Tufts could record an out. Tufts cut the lead in half with four runs in the bottom of the fifth. Senior 1B Tim Ayres (Irvine, CA) lined a two-run double down the right field line during the inning. After closing the gap to 8-6 with two runs in the sixth, Tufts tied the game at 8-8 on junior CF Evan Zupancic's (Lake Oswego, OR) two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth. The Jumbos put runners on second and third after Zupancic's blast, but Trinity P Kevin Tidmarsh (Meriden, CT), on in relief after the home run, got a strike out to end the inning. Tufts junior P Mike Byron (Hanover, MA) entered amid the Trinity barrage in the second and gave up six of the nine hits, but pitched well thereafter. He allowed just three hits over the next seven innings until Spanos and Natale singles produced the winning run in the 10th. Trinity ace Jonah Bayliss (Williamstown, MA) came on in relief in the ninth and pitched a 1-2-3 10th to earn the win. Natale had four hits to lead Trinity's 15-hit attack. Six Jumbos had two hits apiece, with Zupancic and Ayres each driving home two runs. The loss broke a 10-game winning streak by Tufts (25-8-1). Trinity (26-10) set a new team record with its 26th win.

In game seven, which started at approximately 3 pm, Trinity took a 2-0 lead on a two-run single by Nick Callini (Westfield, MA) in the bottom of the second. Tufts tied it at 2-2 in the top of the third when freshman 2B Frank Dinucci (Wilton, CT) smashed his first home run of the second to the opposite field. Trinity scored single runs in the third and fourth innings, on a base hit by junior 2B Kurt Piantek (Wallingford, CT) and a ground out by senior CF Tom Osuch (Fairhaven, MA), respectively. After the top of the fifth, the players were called off the field a third time due to an increasing rain. A half-hour wait followed, then the game was called and the final decision rendered.

Tufts will be making its second NCAA Tournament appearance, and the first since 1995.

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