BEVERLY, Mass. – The good news for the No. 12 defending national champion Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team against No. 5 Endicott College is that it got another strong outing from the two pitchers at the top of its rotation.
The bad news is that two Endicott (31-5) pitchers limited the Warriors to one hit through five innings and only five singles in all as the Gulls remained perfect this year in 15 home games with a 4-1 non-conference victory in a battle of two of New England's top three-ranked teams at North Field.
Featuring a .327 team batting average, Eastern (27-9) was held in check by junior righty Nicholas Cannata and sophomore righty Chris Jenkins as the Warriors lost for the fourth time in the last six outings and for the first time in the four-game all-time series with Endicott, ranked first in New England.
While Eastern was winning regional tournaments and Super Regionals en route to its fifth national title last spring, Endicott won the Cortland, NY Regional out of the losers' bracket before falling a step shy of a joining Eastern at the national tournament berth with 4-2, 7-4 losses to visiting Baldwin Wallace College at the Beverly, MA Super Regionals that concluded its 40-10 campaign.
Against Eastern, Endicott scored its runs in three innings where the leadoff batter reached safely.
Eastern tied the game in the sixth on singles by senior second baseman
Noah Plantamuro (Bristol) and junior first baseman
Ryan Parent (Southington) but left the bases loaded when Jenkins came on to get an inning-ending ground ball to short after walking junior leftfielder
Josh Cofrancesco (Southington).
An inning-opening hit-by-pitch and two singles helped the Gulls take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second against sophomore righty starter
Matthew Wootton (Milford) and after the Warriors couldn't capitalize with go-ahead runs in the top of the sixth, junior third baseman Kyle Grabowski socked a two-run home run – his seventh of the year – to give Endicott the lead for good, 3-1, in the bottom of the sixth. A leadoff double and No. 3 hitter Nicolas Notarangelo's run-scoring single added a pad run for Endicott in the seventh.
Five Eastern pitchers gave up 12 hits but walked only one and struck out ten. As the starter, Wootton allowed one run on three hits with two strikeouts in two-and-a-third innings, and sophomore lefty
Dan Driscoll (Waterford) came on in the seventh with two on and none out and struck out all six batters he faced (five of them swinging) over the final two innings on 30 pitches. Wootton and Driscoll have been Eastern's weekend starters against Little East Conference opponents this season. Wootton is 5-0 with a 1.93 ERA and 57 strikeouts in nine starts over 51 1/3 innings while Driscoll is 6-3 with a 2.01 ERA in 12 appearances (six starts) over a staff-leading 58 1/3 innings, with 74 strikeouts.
The Warriors played perfect defense for the 17
th time this year and turned their 33
rd double play of the year when Plantamuro tagged two runners out at second base to end the fourth inning after sophomore centerfielder
Ray Leonzi (Trumbull) trapped a sinking line drive by No. 9 hitter TJ Liponis. The play prevented Endicott from scoring despite collecting three hits, and kept the Warriors' deficit at the time to 1-0.
Leonzi singled in the ninth inning to extend his hitting streak to 12 and junior rightfielder
Jason Claiborn (Prospect) and junior shortstop
Zach Donahue (South Windsor) both reached with a walk and single, respectively, that extended their on-base streaks to nine and eight, respectively. Claiborn had an eight-game hitting streak ended while Plantamuro and Donahue hit safely in their eighth straight. Parent's RBI in the sixth inning was his team-leading 33
rd of the year.
Eastern returns to Little East Conference action Tuesday when it hosts Keene State College at 4 p.m.
