Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

KEENE, N.H. – The Keene State College baseball program first honored their six graduating seniors – Josh Andrade, Josh DeFrancisco, Ryan Sliwinski, Isaac Keehn, Jacob Laskosky, and Greg Poggioli – and then long-time head coach Ken Howe '86 as he coached his final games with the Owls after 35 years and 584 victories, while closing out the 2021 campaign with a pair of Little East Conference games against the University of Massachusetts-Boston on Sunday at a sunny Owl Athletic Complex.  The Beacons, winners of the last three Little East tournaments and a 2019 World Series participant, took both games 3-2 and 8-3 thanks to strong pitching and key insurance runs in the later stages of both contests.
 
Records

• Keene State:  3-19, 2-13 LEC
• UMass-Boston:  9-7, 9-7 LEC

How It Happened – Game One
Keene State got a well-pitched game of their own from a pair of seniors, Keehn and Sliwinski, in their final day at home, but the Beacons managed just enough offense in the opening six innings to escape with a 3-2 win.  Only one of their three runs came home on a hit, but the arms of Tylor Arruda, Jackson Snider, and Alessio Pressamarita made it work as they struck out 11 and held the Owls to two runs.
 
Andrade had a memorable final day at Owl Athletic Complex, blasting a solo shot to left with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to keep his team alive and make it 3-2, bringing the tying run to the plate.  However, Pressamartia struck out the next batter Colin Grenier to pick up his second save of the season.  KSC had a big opportunity in the previous inning against him, loading the bases with one out in a 3-0 game, but they scored only once.  Grenier opened the frame with an infield single and moved up when Brendan Eaton was hit with a pitch to put two on.  Josh Beayon then reached on an error by UMB second baseman Dean Slattery, filling the bases and producing KSC's biggest threat of the game.  They even had the right man at the plate in Joe Barter, he of five home runs on the season, representing the go-ahead run.  The infielder from Coventry, R.I. did get the Owls on the board, lofting a sacrifice fly to left – but just missing something even bigger – to make it 3-1.  Pressamarita then got Colin McKeon to bounce to first to end the inning.
 
While that was Keene State's biggest threat of the game, they did have several other chances.  In the third, Michael Montembeault walked and Grenier singled, but both were left stranded by Arruda, who fanned eight in four innings.  The Owls put the first two on in the fourth when Eaton's hard ground ball worked its way into right and, after he stole second, Beayon singled through the other side of the infield to put runners on the corners with nobody out.  Arruda would work out of his biggest jam of the game, sending down the next three while not letting KSC get a ball to the outfield, which would prove critical in what ended up a one-run game.
 
The Beacons' first run of the afternoon came in the second inning when Nico Kydes led off with a double, moved to third on a fly out by Gianni Zarrilli, Jr., and then scored when a balk was called on Keehn.  They then made it 2-0 two innings later when, on an attempted pickoff attempt of Kydes at second by Keehn, Aidan Blake scampered home and beat the throw back in what would go down as a stolen base.  After Keene State threatened but did not score in each of the next two innings, Slattery's two-out single to right in the sixth made it 3-0, which turned out to be enough.
 
Keehn (2-3) allowed seven hits and three runs over six innings in his final start as an Owl.  He struck out four.  Sliwinski then tossed three solid shutout innings of relief.  Andrade, Grenier, and Eaton all had multi-hit games for KSC.
 
Snider (2-1) entered in the fifth and got the win for the Beacons after pitching three scoreless innings out of the bullpen himself, allowing two hits and striking out two.  Kydes was 2-for-2 with a double and drew a walk, but that was the only extra-base hit for UMB.
 
How It Happened – Game Two
A four-run fifth for UMass-Boston broke open a 2-0 game, and then two additional runs (one unearned) in the ninth after the Owls closed within 6-3 helped the Beacons keep KSC at bay in an 8-3 game in the nightcap.  The Owls allowed four unearned runs in the game, three of which came in the fifth.  UMB's arms again turned in a strong showing, as starter Alex Amalfi dealt three hitless innings with four strikeouts and was followed by DJ Lopes (1-0), who allowed two hits and one run unearned over the next three frames.  He whiffed three.
 
UMass-Boston cracked five doubles in the game, three of which scored a run, including two in a row in the fifth that made it 3-0.  Zarrilli's grounder to short should have ended the inning, but the throw got away, and in a tough pill for the Owls to swallow, added three more runs for a 6-0 lead.  KSC did answer back with a run on Laskosky's single to deep third in the bottom half and after 2.1 scoreless innings of relief from Gregory Esposito, got within 6-3 in the eighth on Mike Collins' two-run double, but they could not get any closer.  The Beacons took the air out of the sails of any comeback in the ninth when Blake scored on a passed ball and Ethan Errera lifted a sac fly to left.  Beayon worked a leadoff walk to start the ninth, but the next three were sent down to wrap up the season.
 
Sliwinski (0-4) came back and tossed the opening four innings of the nightcap, allowing two runs.  Barter doubled and walked to pace KSC's offense, while Collins drove in a pair, but they were held to four hits overall.  Errera finished 3-for-4 and drove in three for UMass-Boston.
 
Around the Horn

• The Owls will have some big shoes to fill as Howe is 39th among active Division III coaches in victories (584).  He won three Little East regular season titles, the 2008 conference tournament title at home, made the NCAA tournament four times in six years from 2007 through 2012 including the regional final in '07, and was 233-118 from 2005 through 2012 (winning more than 30 games four times).
• Beayon finishes the season with a team-best .306 batting average, while Barter led the Owls in home runs (5) and RBI (21).

Up Next

• Keene State, after searching for a new head coach for the first time in over 35 years, will be back out on the diamond for a regular 2022 season next March.  You can continue checking keeneowls.com for updates throughout the offseason.
• UMass-Boston will be the No. 4 or No. 5 seed in the LEC tournament depending on the result of Monday's UMass-Dartmouth/Plymouth State game.  Either way, they will travel to Eastern Connecticut and play the Corsairs in the tournament's first round on Thursday, May 13.