GORHAM, Maine – The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth scored five times across the second and third innings to take a four-run lead and the Keene State College offense could not come up with a big hit, stranding 13 on base as they suffered a 7-4 loss to the Corsairs in the second round of the Little East Conference tournament hosted by the University of Southern Maine at Ed Flaherty Field Thursday night.
After falling behind by four in the top of the third, the Owls (24-16) quickly got two runs back, drawing within 5-3 on an RBI double by
Jonathan Chatfield before Jayden Cruz booted
Otis Follet's grounder to second. But it was a night of missed opportunities and problematic defense from there, as KSC never got over the hump. In the fourth,
Ethan Rainha walked on five pitches and
Trevor Snow followed with a double to left, but Rainha was thrown out at the plate and
Derek Finlay popped out as a seemingly promising inning fizzled quickly. The Owls also had a pair of walks in the fifth but could not score. UMass-Dartmouth (21-20), who did very little against
Jayke Glidden, pushed across two critical insurance runs in the sixth when Cruz reached on an infield single to short and Cooper Wixon followed with a base hit to right, with KSC allowing an extra base to him on a miscue to put two in scoring position. Brett Baker then followed with a two-run triple on a 2-2 pitch to plate both and make it 7-3.
Other than that, the Corsairs did next to nothing against the Owl freshman, who did not walk a batter and struck out 10, throwing 120 pitches. He allowed just three hits otherwise outside of the sixth inning, though did inherit a messy situation in the third when he came in for
Jake Jachym with the bases loaded and one out in a 2-1 game. Nick Bartalini poked a base hit that bounced into left to plate two to make it a three-run lead, and KSC allowed a fifth run on an error with two outs on Cruz's grounder to short.
Down four, the Owls put multiple baserunners on in each of the final three innings, but had just a run in the ninth to show for it. In the seventh, Chatfield went the other way for a single to left center with one out before
Lucas Rogers reached on a two-out error and
Evan Cali beat out a base hit to second to bring the tying run to the plate. KSC left them loaded, though, as
Domminic Tagliaferro flew out to right as UMass-Dartmouth's trio of arms (Jackson Hayes, Seamus Marshall, and Dillon Harding) danced out of trouble all night. Hayes allowed five hits and walked five in 4.2 innings, but got away with it, allowing just three runs (two earned). Marshall (2-0) allowed two hits and walked a batter without allowing a run, striking out four.
Jachym took the loss, allowing seven hits and five runs (four earned) with one strikeout in 2.1 innings. Glidden's 10 punchouts were a season and career-high by double.
Snow doubled and had four hits in five at bats out of the top spot in the Owls' lineup, while Chatfield was 2-for-5 and drove in a pair of runs. Follet (2-4, BB, K) also reached three times, but the bottom three spots in KSC's lineup – unlike Wednesday – were 0-for-12 with two walks.
Nick Bartalini, meanwhile, drove in three runs and had three hits out of the eighth spot in UMD's order, backing multi-hit efforts by Baker (2-5, 2B, 3B), Luc Nivaud (2-5, 2B, 2 K), and Sam Bradford (2-5, 2B, 2 R, 2 K).
"We made some early mistakes that put us in a bad spot," said Keene State head coach
Justin Blood. "
Jayke Glidden pitched great in relief and did everything he could to give us a chance to come back. We had plenty of opportunities, but we could not find green grass when we needed to."
Keene State will take on the University of Massachusetts-Boston (21-21) in an elimination game tomorrow (Friday, May 8) afternoon at 3:30 p.m. The winner of that game will have to play at 7:00 p.m. against the loser of UMass-Dartmouth and Southern Maine, today's winners, who will meet at 12:00 p.m. Friday with the victor advancing to the LEC finals and needing to be beaten twice on Saturday. UMass-Boston stayed alive with a 9-2 win over No. 6 seed Vermont State University Castleton to begin today's action before Southern Maine knocked out Eastern Connecticut State University with an 11-1 blowout.
