HARWICH, Mass. – Every win that Endicott College collects this year has been bigger in magnitude and more impressive in the history of the Gulls' baseball program. Friday afternoon's 5-2 win over top-seeded University of Southern Maine at the NCAA Division III New England Regional was the latest in these momentous victories and put the Gulls on the precipice of a berth in the College World Series in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Third-seeded Endicott (35-12) is the lone undefeated team in the regional tournament at 3-0 and moves into the championship game, where they need just one victory to be crowned New England champions and secure a spot as one of the nation's final eight teams.
The Huskies (39-8) will have to play in tomorrow afternoon's 12:00 pm loser's bracket championship to stay alive in the tournament. Southern Maine will face the winner of tonight's Wheaton vs. Western New England matchup with the winner facing the Gulls at 4:00 pm. That team will need to beat Endicott twice in order to stop the Gulls from taking the regional crown.
Graduate student Colin Sitarz (West Hartford, Conn.) broke the Endicott record for career hits with a 3-for-4 day. Sitarz, who now has 216 career base hits, gave Endicott a lead with his fourth home run of the year in the fourth inning, singled and scored in the seventh and drove in an insurance run in the top of the eighth with a base knock to right center.
Senior Tyler Hitchcock (Abington, Mass.) was brilliant in four shutout innings of relief. The Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) pitcher of the year improved to 9-1 on the season with a one-hit, two strikeout performance to keep the Huskies at bay.
After Sitarz's blast got them on the board, Endicott added another run for a 2-0 advantage in the fifth inning, when Tad Gold (Martha's Vineyard, Mass.) singled and advanced to third on groundouts before coming in on a single by Cody Hall (Rutland, Mass.), who collected his 18th run batted in on the year.
Gold was 2-for-4 in the game and made a spectacular diving catch in center field to retire Chris Bernard (Scarborough, Maine) for the second out of the ninth inning. Right fielder Conor Ressel (Rockport, Mass.) also made several great plays in a game in which the combination of sun and wind wreaked havoc on balls hit to the outfield.
Southern Maine tied the game in the bottom of the sixth inning, which was led off with singles by Nick DiBiase (Portland, Maine) and Sam Dexter (Oakland, Maine). Dexter, who led off the top of the first inning with a double, was the only Husky to have two hits in the game, and the only Southern Maine player to collect an extra-base hit. Southern Maine loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth and plated a run when Hitchcock came on in relief of JJ Branch (Milford, Mass.) and hit the first batter he faced, center fielder Tucker White (Deerfield, N.H.).
Hitchcock was able to stop the threat by getting Nick Grady (Whitefield, Maine) to ground into a double play and striking out Bernard to end the inning, though Dexter did score to tie the game on the twin-killing.
Endicott wasted no time taking the lead for good in the top of the seventh, loading the bases themselves with straight singles by Sitarz, Matthew Paola (Middlebury, Conn.) and Gold to greet new Southern Maine pitcher Andrew Richards (South Portland, Maine), who took the loss to fall to 7-2 on the year.
Senior designated hitter Eric Lemke (Southington, Conn.) took a bases loaded walk and the Gulls added another run on their own double play groundout, this one by catcher EJ Martinez (Brooklyn, N.Y.).
Sitarz knocked home Harry Oringer (Dartmouth, Mass.) in the eighth, after Oringer reached on a dropped pop fly by Southern Maine second baseman Anthony Pisani (Cheshire, Conn.), one of two errors made by the Huskies.
Branch, the Endicott starter, worked five innings and allowed five hits and two earned runs. He collected two strikeouts and issuing two free passes and did not figure into the decision.
Fellow freshman Shyler Scates (Jefferson, Maine), who started for the Huskies, worked the first six innings and gave up two earned runs on four hits without a walk or a strikeout.
Endicott was 3-11 all-time against Southern Maine and had fallen to the Huskies twice this season, but on Friday afternoon, proved true the idea that beating a team three times in a season is a difficult proposition.
The Gulls were 1-8 in NCAA tournament play coming into this game and now will look to become just the second CCC team to reach the national finals, after Western New England accomplished the feat in 2011.
