Vestal, N.Y.-- Stony Brook and Binghamton each won on day two of the 2010 America East Baseball Championship at Varsity Field Thursday afternoon. The Seawolves advance to the championship round tomorrow afternoon, while the Bearcats and Great Danes play Friday morning at 11 a.m. to determine who advances to the afternoon game.
Top-seeded Binghamton (31-19) and fourth-seeded Albany (12-39) will face each other for the second time in three days as the Great Danes defeated the Bearcats in the opening round, 9-6. The Seawolves (28-25), who will be awaiting the winner, will be gunning for their second championship title in three years.
In the morning's elimination game, Binghamton scored all six of its runs in the first three innings, posting up four in the top of the first inning and pushing across one in each the second and third innings, en route to a 6-0 win over Maine (34-22).
Senior Jim Calderone started off the game with a walk and then stole his 11th base of the season to advance to second. Junior Pete Bregartner singled to left field, which drove in Calderone to open up the scoring. Sophomore Dave Ciocchi followed that up with a deep two-run home run over the right field fence. After two pop outs, the designated hitter Jeff Skelhorne-Gross was hit by a pitch. A Jeff Abrams single to left and a Joel Stubbs double down the left field line scored Skelhorne-Gross to make it 4-0 in favor of the Bearcats even before the Black Bears stepped up to the plate.
After an easy bottom half of the first inning for the Binghamton defense, a scary moment happened when Maine starting pitcher AJ Bazdanes, a second-team all-conference pick, had a pitch get away from him that hit Player of the Year Corey Taylor in the face. Taylor was replaced by John Miele and did not return to the game. Bazdanes was also removed from the game following that hit by a pitch which loaded the bases, and was relieved by another righty, Matt Jebb.
Jebb allowed an RBI sacrifice fly to Charron and then induced a groundout to third base to end the top half of the inning. Jebb finished the game for the Black Bears, going 7.2 innings, allowing just five hits and one run for the rest of the game.
Binghamton's Mike Augliera hurled a complete game shutout, striking out a career-high 11 batters. He scattered eight hits and gave out just two free passes.
Ciocchi finished with two RBI on his homer, his only hit of the game, while Calderone, Abrams and Stubbs each went 2-for-4.
Senior Joe Mercurio finished his Maine career with his second multi-hit game of the tournament, going 2-for-4 with his 19th double of the season and throwing out a runner attempting to steal second from behind the plate.
The difference in the day's second game, an 8-4 Stony Brook win over Albany, was a grand slam in the top half of the ninth inning by Rookie of the Year William Carmona. Carmona's blast made the game 8-0 in favor of the Seawolves at the time, however the Great Danes scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth to cut the deficit in half, giving Albany a total of seven runs scored in the ninth inning of its two tournament games so far.
Stony Brook's Taylor Nivins scored the first run of the game in the third inning after being hit by Albany starting pitcher Zach Kraham. He advanced to third on a fielder's choice and a wild pitch, and then crossed the plate on Pat Cantwell's double down the left field line. Yesterday's hero, Chad Marshall, grounded out to short stop to end the inning.
The Seawolves tacked on two more runs in the fifth, starting with rookie Max Tissenbaum's home run to lead off the inning, knocking the first pitch he saw in the at bat to straightaway center field. Catcher Justin Echevarria scored the second run from third, advancing when Mike Stephan was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Kraham got out of the jam by inducing Carmona to ground out to first base.
Tissenbaum, who went 3-for-4 on the game, scored one of his two runs in the sixth. With one out, the rookie singled on an infield hit to shortstop. Echevarria then lined out before Cantwell doubled in Tissenbaum once again to left field to drive in Tissenbaum. Cantwell, a second-team outfielder, finished the afternoon 2-for-4 with two RBI.
Albany entered the bottom of the ninth inning down 8-0 after Carmon's grand slam, but knocked out three straight singles by Brendan Rowland, Ralph Keppler and Mike Tirri. Stony Brook pulled starter Tyler Johnson, who went eight strong innings up until the ninth with eight strikeouts and only two hits against, and looked to Anthony Luciano to close out the game.
Luciano, who had completed Nick Tropeano's game Wednesday, was not as successful today, hitting the first two opposing batters which plated the Great Danes' first two runs. After throwing just four pitches, Luciano was pulled in favor of Michael Barbot, who was able to retire the side. Before doing so though, Albany scored twice more on a single and a throwing error.
Great Danes starter Kraham also went eight innings and was charged with four earned runs and seven hits. Mike Baltera and Nick Sessa combined for the final inning.
2010 America East Baseball Championship
All
games on the campus of Binghamton University
Double Elimination
Wednesday,
May 26
Game 1: #3 Stony Brook 10, #2 Maine
Game 2: #4
Albany 9, #1 Binghamton 6
Thursday, May 27
Game
3: Binghamton 6, Maine 0
Game 4: Stony Brook 8, Albany 4
Friday,
May 28
Game 5: Albany (home) vs. Binghamton
Game
6: Stony Brook (home) vs. Winner of Game 5
Saturday, May 29
Game
7 (if necessary): Winner of Game 6 vs. Loser of Game 6