Teams: Baseball: Schedule & Results

COLLEGE BASEBALL FINAL SCORE
NESCAC Tournament
Trinity 5, Tufts 1

At Hartford, CT
Saturday, May 10, 2008

Game Box Score

Freshman Chase Rose hit a solo home run for Tufts

HARTFORD -- Sophomore RHP Jeremiah Bayer (Greenfield, MA) pitched seven innings of shutout ball with nine strikeouts and just one walk to lead the Trinity College Bantams to a 5-1 win over the visiting Tufts University Jumbos in the winner�s bracket game of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Baseball Championship Tournament this afternoon. Trinity improves to 36-0, extending the nation�s best-ever Division III baseball season start and breaking their school record for wins in a season.

The Bantams, ranked No. 2 in the nation, had downed Amherst, 9-1, in the opening round earlier today and they advance to the winner�s bracket finals tomorrow at noon. The winner of tomorrow morning�s elimination game between Tufts and Amherst will have to defeat Trinity twice in a row on Sunday at the Bantams� home field to win the title. The Jumbos, who defeated Williams, 1-0, in their opening round game at Wesleyan today, fall to 19-14 and will play Amherst at 9 am tomorrow at Trinity. Amherst edged Williams, 9-8, in 10 innings in an elimination game at Wesleyan this afternoon.

Bayer allowed six hits in seven innings to improve to 7-0. Trinity, officially the visiting team in the game, got the only run it would need in the top of the first inning when sophomore OF Jack Abbott (Longmeadow, MA) got the first of his three hits in the game and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by classmate Kent Graham (Longmeadow, MA).

Bayer and Tufts freshman starter Pat O�Donnell (Worcester, MA) kept both teams scoreless over the next three frames, but the Bantams added another run in the top of the fifth inning on three consecutive, two-out singles by Abbott, junior 2B Ryan Piacentini (Portland, ME), and junior tri-captain C Sean Killeen (Greenfield, MA). Trinity sophomore OF James Wood (Windham, NH) and Piacentini belted solo homers and senior 3B Tim Bourdon (Simsbury, CT) added a sacrifice fly to account for the remaining Trinity runs.

Tufts freshman Chase Rose (Scottsdale, AZ) belted a solo shot over the center field wall in the eighth inning to avoid the shutout.

Abbott finished 3 for 5 for Trinity, while Piacentini went 3 for 3 to finish 5 for 7 with four runs and four RBI for the day. Trinity pounded out 16 hits off three Jumbo pitchers, but left 12 men on base. Tufts left 10 men on base and had runners in scoring position in each of the first five innings. O�Donnell went seven innings and allowed 12 hits to drop to 6-2 for the season. Junior DH Eric Catalanotti (Grafton, MA) went 2 for 4.

Tufts will be playing tomorrow morning to go to their third straight NESCAC championship round.

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