Teams: Baseball: Schedule & Results

COLLEGE BASEBALL FINAL SCORE
NCAA Championship Regional Game 2
Tufts 12, St. Joseph's, ME 3

At Willimantic, CT
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Game Box Score

Junior RF Chase Rose knocked in four runs for Tufts

WILLIMANTIC, Conn. -- Tufts University, the winner of the NESCAC, batted around on two occasions during the opening three innings to collect seven runs and go on for a 12-3 victory over GNAC champion St. Joseph's College (Me.) in a first-round NCAA Division III regional tournament game here today.

Tufts moves on in the winner's bracket and will play on Thursday at 4:30 pm against host Eastern Connecticut State University, which defeated Worcester State College, 10-4, in the day's first contest. St. Joseph's meet Worcester State in an elimination game at 10 am.

Sending nine batters to the plate for the second time in the early going, Tufts pulled ahead 7-3 with a four-run third inning. A single by senior LF Nate Bankoff (Lynnfield, MA), an RBI triple from junior CF David Orlowitz (Wakefield, MA) for the go-ahead run, and an RBI single by senior catcher Alex Perry (Danvers, MA) in consecutive fashion made it 5-3 for the top-seeded Jumbos. Perry then stole second, went to third on an infield error and scored on junior DH Ben Walkley's (Trumbull, CT) sacrifice fly to right for a three-run cushion. Junior shortstop David LeResche (St. Louis, MO), who had reached on an error, eventually scored the seventh Tufts run on a single by junior RF Chase Rose (Scottsdale, AZ). Rose was the first Jumbo batter to face junior reliever Mason Roberge (Franklin, NH), as he came in for sophomore ace Sam Murray (Walpole, MA). Murray entered the game with a team-best 7-1 record and 1.77 earned run average, but absorbed his second loss of the year.

Both teams managed some early scoring as St. Joe's got things started with a run in the first and added a pair in the second while Tufts put three on the board in the bottom of the first. After LeResche was hit by a pitch leading off for Tufts, Walkley smacked an RBI double to left-center to even the score at 1-1. After a single by sophomore 3B Sam Sager (Cranston, RI) moved Walkley to third base, Rose brought him in with a sacrifice fly to left, giving the Jumbos the lead. Sager scored the third Tufts run on a bases-loaded walk to Orlowitz as Tufts batted around in the stanza.

The Monks came back to tie the game at 3-3 in the second, scoring twice with two outs as senior 2B Mike Burdin (Gardiner, ME) drove in freshman 3B Mike Pratt (Dartmouth, MA), who had walked and gone to third base on a double to right-center by junior shortstop Chris Campbell (Rochester, NH). Campbell then rambled home with the tying run on a single off the right-field wall by junior RF Todd Keneborus (Hollis Center NH). Tufts ended the threat by getting Burdin out in a run down between third and home.

St. Joe's owned a 1-0 lead when Burdin, Keneborus and senior first baseman Ben Grant-Ray (Biddeford, ME) produced consecutive singles off Tufts starter sophomore Kevin Gilchrist (Medford, MA) with one out, but managed just a lone run on a groundout by senior DH Pat Moran (Winterport, Me.). Gilchrist went the distance for the Jumbos to improve his seasonal mark to 5-0. It was his second complete game in five starts in 2010.

Tufts tacked on a pair in the fourth with Perry's double into the left-field corner plating Orlowitz, who had doubled, and a groundout by junior 2B Frank Petroskey (Dallas, TX) bringing in Perry. A three-run seventh inning for the Jumbos was highlighted by a two-run double down the left-field line by Rose after a bases-loaded walk to Sager. Rose was one of six Jumbos with a two-hit effort as he led the way with four runs batted in. Walkley, Sager, Bankoff , Orlowitz and Perry all turned the two-hit trick as well while LeResche scored three runs.

For St. Joe's, Burdin and Keneborus each had a pair of safeties.

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