WNEC Baseball Defeats St. Joseph's to move on

The WNEC baseball team reached the 40-win mark for the first time in program history by defeating St. Joseph (ME), 4-1, in the second round of the NCAA New England Regional at Harwich, MA on Thursday. 

The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fourth inning, when St. Joseph's drew first blood on a Mike Pratt homer run to right field off Golden Bears starter Zach Cloft, the second of three hits on the night for Pratt, who was a triple shy of hitting for the cycle. 

The G-Bears would respond in the top of the fifth.  After Mike Taylor and Andrew Fatse reached base on back-to-back base hits, WNEC played a little bit of small ball, with Kyle McKelvey moving along the two into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt.  Leadoff man Matt Anthonis then drove in the pair on a 2-run single down the left field line, giving the Bears a 2-1 lead. 

That would prove to be more than enough for the Golden Bears, as starter Zach Cloft threw 4 and 2/3 shutout innings, allowing just 4 base runners on hits by Nate Martin, Ian Lee, and Mike Pratt, as well as walking Sam Butts.  He would finish with 1 run on 6 hits and a walk while striking out 9.  Meanwhile, the offense continued to give him support by tacking on insurance runs in the sixth and eighth innings to further the lead to 4-1.

In the ninth, Mike Lawlor came in, and once again shut the door, picking up two quick outs by forcing Pratt to ground out to McKelvey, and striking out Alex Markakis, the cousin of Orioles RF Nick Markakis.  After allowing Ian Lee to reach on a single, he would force Dan Achorn to flyout to Casey Dadio in right to end the night.

St. Joseph's will move on to meet top-seeded Tufts in an elimination game on Sunday, while WNEC faces Bridgewater St., who has been a surprise thus far in the tournament, knocking off the top-seeded Tufts, as well as RIC, the fith seed in the tournament.


Thursdays' Other Scores
No .1 Tufts 3, No. 4 MIT 2
No. 3 Wheaton 7, No. 7 Husson 4
No. 8 Bridgewater St. 8, No. 5 RIC 5

Friday's Games
No. 3 Wheaton vs. No. 5 RIC
No. 6 St. Joseph's (ME) vs. No. 1 Tufts
No. 2 WNEC vs. No. 8 Bridgewater St.