WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – The Keene State College baseball team erased a 5-1 deficit with three runs in the sixth and another in the seventh, but the University of Hartford answered with three runs in the bottom half as they beat the Owls for the first time in four tries over the past two seasons 8-5 on Sunday afternoon at Fiondella Field.

KSC (6-9) had won two straight after blowing a 5-0 lead against Roger Williams University on Thursday, scoring 26 runs at the same venue in a 12-6 Friday win over the Hawks and a 14-9 victory over Wheaton College (Mass.) yesterday.  They still put up five runs today, but were held to six hits and had only one – Anthony DiGiacomo's game-tying double in the seventh – for extra bases.

Hartford snapped a three-game home losing streak and a three-game losing streak against KSC by capitalizing against the Owls' bullpen, which has pitched to a 9.37 ERA in their nine losses this season (and 4.39 in their six wins).  JJ Romatzick led off the seventh with a single up the middle before KSC helped along the inning, hitting Cameron Boardman and walking Jeremy Mangiameli with one out to load the bases.  After Troy Brennan replaced George Young, Jackson Ciccone poked a base hit on a 2-2 pitch that found its way into left to put the Hawks back in front.  Brennan struck out Ryan Knight on a controversial pitch to keep it 6-5, but the ensuing batter Tyler Shannon delivered a critical blow by floating a two-run single to left to restore a three-run Hartford lead.

Keene State did not have a hit in the last two innings, going down 1-2-3 in the eighth.  Against Evan Gentile in the ninth, they did bring the tying run to the plate thanks to a one-out error on an Ethan Rainha fly ball to center before Domminic Tagliaferro was plunked two batters later with two down, but Evan Cali – representing the tying run who had homered in each game the last two days – was called out on strikes on a 3-2 pitch to end the game.

The Owls fell to just 3-3 when scoring first, as they took a 1-0 lead in the second when Tommy Ahlers led off with a base hit before later scoring on a one-out RBI single to center by Lucas Rogers.

Their lead did not last the inning, as Shea Zina hit three batters in the second and two scored thanks to singles by Shannon and Peyton West with two down to put the Hawks up 2-1.  A two-run blast by Knight in the fourth extended the home team's lead to 4-1, and an unearned run in the fifth tacked on another as the Owls faced a four-run deficit.
Unlike Friday, though, when KSC solved Jeffrey Blake in the fifth and then turned the game into an 11-3 runaway in the sixth, they never found a significant solution against Hartford starter Ryan Sheehy today, who fired six innings and allowed three earned runs on four hits while striking out seven.  They did chip away in the sixth as Tagliaferro walked on five pitches to lead off the frame before Cali singled and Luke Anderson took a free pass.  Evan McCue followed with a line drive single to center that made it 5-2 and set KSC up for a possible huge inning.  Ahlers (ground out) and Jonathan Chatfield (sacrifice fly) did bring the Owls within one, but the inning ended with a pickoff as Hartford preserved their lead.

George Young (1-1) got a 6-4-3 double play to erase a leadoff walk in the bottom of the sixth but wound up suffering the loss by allowing the game-deciding run an inning later.

"I thought we competed well at the plate," said KSC head coach Justin Blood.  "Ultimately we just gave up too many free nineties and did not execute some two-strike counts on the mound the way we would have liked to.  The dugout energy was good, but we just gave them too many opportunities."

After Zina struck out the side in a dominant 12-pitch first inning, Hartford had at least one baserunner in each of the next six frames.

Luke Rier (1-0) pitched the seventh and eighth for the Hawks, allowing two hits and a run with one walk and one strikeout.  Gentile got his second save, whiffing two in the ninth.  KSC struck out 10 times in the game, though after fanning double-digit times in four of the first six games, did so for just the second time in the last nine games.  They are 2-4 when striking out at least 10 times and 3-7 when they do not hit a home run.

Rogers (2-3) was the lone Owl to have multiple hits, though Ahlers (12 games), McCue (seven games), and DiGiacomo (five games) extended hitting streaks.

Shannon was 2-for-4 and drove in three to pace four multi-hit efforts for Hartford.

KSC finishes a stretch of four consecutive days with games at 2-2 – and it was the seventh inning that swung both games.  Chatfield gave the Owls a 7-6 lead with a blast in the top half of the frame at RWU on Thursday, only to see the Hawks score two in the seventh and four in the eighth.  The two wins in this stretch saw the Owls engineer two massive innings – first an eight-run sixth against this same Hartford team on Friday (giving them an 11-3 lead) and then a seven-run third against Wheaton yesterday (giving them a 7-0 lead) – but they could not create one on this afternoon and fell to 4-9 in true road games.

The Owls are slated to open their home schedule on Wednesday (March 26) at 3:00 p.m. against Salem State University (3-6).  It will be the Vikings' first game back in New England after a 3-5 trip to Florida that wrapped up Saturday with a 6-2 loss to Johns Hopkins University.  Hartford (3-4 at home) hosts Western New England (8-5, 1-1 CNE) in a conference game Tuesday, March 25 at 3:00 p.m.