LOWELL, Mass. - The top-two seeds in the 2014 America East Baseball Championship moved into the winners bracket after the first day of action on Thursday at LeLacheur Park in Lowell, Mass. No. 1 seed Stony Brook beat No. 4 Maine, 4-1, in game one, while No. 2 Hartford beat No. 3 Binghamton, 6-1, in game two.
Stony Brook and Hartford will play in the winners bracket at 6 p.m. on Friday. Maine and Binghamton will play in an elimination game in the first game on Friday at 2 p.m.
Recap Thursday's games:
No. 1 Stony Brook 4, No. 4 Maine 1
Box Score
Stony Brook starting pitcher Frankie Vanderka tossed a complete game, allowing just one run while scattering eight hits to go with seven strikeouts, leading the Seawolves to a, 4-1, win in game one.
Stony Brook moves into the winners bracket to face No. 2 Hartford at 6 p.m. on Friday. Maine will take on Binghamton in an elimination game at 2 p.m.
Freshman Casey Baker, an All-Rookie selection, went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Seawolves, driving in a pair of runs. Cole Peragine also added a pair of hits while Kevin Krause and Anthony Italiano each had an RBI.
First-Team All-Conference selection, Tommy Lawrence, went all eight on the hill for the Black Bears, allowing three earned runs on nine hits and striking out seven.
Maine struck first with an RBI single off the bat of Scott Heath in the first inning. SBU responded in the bottom of the first with an RBI ground out by Krause.
Stony Brook took the lead in the second, as Italiano brought home Baker with a two-out double to make it 2-1. Baker brought home the next two runs for the Seawolves with a single in the sixth and a fielder's choice in the eighth.
Maine threatened in the seventh, loading the bases with two outs, but Vanderka got Alex Calbick to pop out to second. Vanderka finished the game with a one-two-three ninth to earn the win.
No. 2 Hartford 6, No. 3 Binghamton 1
Box Score
Hartford junior Sean Newcomb struck out a career-high 14 batters over seven innings to lead the second-seeded Hawks to a, 6-1, win over No. 3 Binghamton in the second game of the 2014 America East Baseball Championship.
Hartford moves into the winners bracket to face No. 1 Stony Brook at 6 p.m. on Friday. Binghamton will take on Maine in an elimination game at 2 p.m.
Chris DelDebbio, Aaron Wilson and David MacKinnon, the one-through-three hitters for the Hawks, went 7-for-12 in the contest with four runs scored and two RBI.
After both pitchers mowed down the first six batters they faced, Hartford put up a four-spot in the bottom of the third to take control of the game. All four runs came with two outs, beginning with a Wilson RBI single. MacKinnon followed with another single, and Lukach finished the rally with a two-run single to left.
Newcomb ran into trouble just once in the game as the Bearcats loaded the bases in the fourth inning on a bunt single, an error and a walk. The lefty struck out the enxt two batters before issuing a two-out walk to David Schanz that plated Binghamton's only run of the game.
Newcomb recorded 11 of the first 12 outs by way of the strikeout, finishing with 14, four away from the tournament single-game record.
Hartford plated runs in the fourth and fifth to close on the scoring in the game and went on to take a 6-1 win in the team's first America East tournament game since 1996 (then called the NAC.)