AUBURN, N.Y. --  Senior lefty Joe Raab pitched a six-hitter en route to his sixth complete game in seven starts to carry sixth-seeded U.S. Merchant Marine Academcy to a 2-1 victory over top-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University in the opening game of the 2021 NCAA Division III Auburn, NY Regional Thursday morning at Leo Pinckney Field at Falcon Park.
 

The win comes in USMMA's (17-3) first NCAA tournament game ever and is the sixth straight loss in NCAA competition (fourth by a run) over four years for Eastern (32-7), which was playing in its 184th NCAA game since 1976.

An at-large selection to its 35th NCAA tournament, Eastern tries to stay alive Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. in an elimination game against second-seeded SUNY Cortland (27-7), guaranteeing that one of the tournament's top two seeds will be the first team eliminated. Cortland lost Thursday's second game to fifth-seeded Tufts University, 21-17. The Eastern-Cortland winner plays in Saturday's second game at 2:30 p.m.

Merchant Marine has won ten straight while No. 12 nationally-ranked Eastern has lost its last three -- all by a run.

In a battle of conference senior Pitcher-of-the-Year selections in Raab (Skyline Conference) and Eastern's Josh Vincent (New London) of the Little East Conference, Raab (6-1) limited Eastern to just one run while fanning eight and walking just one. Raab entered the game with a 0.90 ERA with 51 strikeouts against only 11 walks.

Vincent matched his career-high at Eastern by pitching eight innings and departing on the short end of  a 2-1 deficit after throwing 74 of his 113 pitches for strikes. Vincent struck out seven and walked three and pitched out of jams in the third, fourth (after USMMA scored both of its runs) and sixth that kept Eastern close.

With Eastern trailing 2-0, senior captain John Mesagno (Tappan, NY) delivered his fifth post-season home run -- a two-strike blast to left which was the first homer allowed by Raab this year -- that cut the margin in half. Raab, however, was in charge the rest of the way -- getting ten of the final 11 outs on ground balls and strikeouts -- and got help from three key defensive plays in the sixth, seventh and eighth.

In the sixth, Mesagno's team-leading 12th home run of the season -- equalling the ninth-most in a season in program history -- could easily have been a game-tying two-run smash if not for a miraculous play by Merchant Marine first baseman Zac Skov on a drive down the first base line by freshman rightfielder Jason Claiborn (Prospect) leading off the inning. Skov nabbed the hot smash behind the bag with a lunge to his left and his throw to Raab covering first got to first a split-second ahead of the head-first slide of Claiborn.

In the seventh, USMMA leftfielder Tyler Reistetter threw out an Eastern runner for the second out of the inning attempting to advance from first to third on senior Ryan Bagdasarian's (Glastonbury) drive down the left field line. In the eighth, Claiborn  legged out an in infield hit for the second time in the game, but shortstop Colin Baker turned Mesagno's hard-hit ground ball into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

Eastern was retired 1-2-3 in the ninth, with Raab getting his first strikeout since the fifth to end the game and become only the second opposing pitcher to record a complete game against Eastern this year. 

Vincent (6-2) stranded a runner on third in the third to keep the game scoreless by getting a strikeout and junior shortstop Owen Marica's (Haddam) grab in shallow center a of a looping fly ball before the Mariners scored their only runs of the game in the fourth.

In the fourth, Merchant Marine capitalized when it got its leadoff runner aboard for the only time against Vincent when  No. 3 hitter Garrett Aichele -- batting .226 -- stroked an opposite-field single to left on a 1-2 pitch. Skov followed with a hit-and-run single through the first side on a one-strike pitch that advanced Aichele to third. Vincent got a strikeout for the first out but Baker, batting .225, plated Aichele from third by singling to center on the first pitch. A ground ball to first base for the second out moved Skov to third and Vincent's first balk of the season ushered Skov home with the second run before Vincent got a ground ball to Marica to strand Brown at third.

Marica and double play partner Noah Plantamuro (Bristol) provided stellar defense up the middle behind Vincent, combining for nine assists and two putouts. Marica had five assists through the first five innings and Plantamuro threw out Timmy Chase to end the second inning when he charged toward the plate to glove a slow hopper, and threw in one motion to retire the batter by a step.

Raab, who averages over 11 strikeouts per game, got five of the first six outs of the game on punchouts -- four of them swinging  -- eventually throwing 83 of his 112 pitches (74 percent) for strikes. The only walk that he issued came with one out in the seventh and that runner was erased on Reistetter's throw to third on Bagdasarian's double to left. Excluding the seventh-inning walk, Raab threw three balls to a batter only twice, getting a full count strikeout in the first and a fly ball to the warning track by junior catcher Matt Malcom (East Lyme) in the second.

Raab got ten outs when ahead on the count, allowing only one hit -- Mesagno's home run in the sixth -- when ahead on the count. Raab threw Mesagno five straight strikes -- three of which were fouled off -- before the homer.

Two of the most successful programs in NCAA Division III post-season play, top-seeded Easten and second-seeded Cortland will battle to avoid being the first team to be knocked out.

Against Cortland, Eastern will likely start either sophomore righty Billy Oldham (Brookfield) or junior lefty Aidan Dunn (Westfield, MA), both unbeaten this year and ranked 1-2 on the staff in starts. Oldham is 4-0 with a 3.68 ERA, 61 strikeouts and 18 walks in 58 2/3 inning. Dunn is 5-0 with a 0.91 ERA, 43 strikeouts and 14 walks in 39 2/3 innings. Neither had a decision in the five-game Little East Conference tournament, where three different relievers were credited with the three wins and two losses. Oldham had a no-hitter through six innings in the LEC championship game, allowing only two hits in 6 1/3 innings.

Cortland is the automatic representative to the NCAA tournament from the State University of New York Athletic  Conference (SUNYAC) after winning the conference tournament title in a Best-of-Three decision over Oswego at home. After losing the opener against Oswego, the Red Dragons stayed alive with an 11-10, 10 inning victory later that day on Scott Giordano's walk-off home run, then advanced to the NCAA with an 8-6 victory in the final the next day after trailing 5-1 after an inning and a half.

Eastern holds a 3-2 edge over Cortland in five previous NCAA regional games. Most recently, Cortland edged the Warriors, 7-6, in the second round of the 2011 tournament at Auburn. In 2006, the teams met three times at Auburn, the Warriors winning the title with 9-5, 10-7 victories over the Red Dragons after being swamped, 9-0, in the second round. The teams opened their regional tournament rivalry in 1981, Eastern winning, 8-5, in the opening round of the Northeast Regional at Alumni Field on the Eastern campus.