March 18, 2009

Garden City, N.Y. - Junior Mike Bartlett had a brilliant performance pitching eight scoreless innings, striking out six, and allowing four hits as the Panthers cruised to a 7-0 victory against the Dominican Chargers on Wednesday, March 18 at William J. Bonomo Memorial Field. With the victory, the Panthers extend their winning streak to four games and improve to 5-4 overall, while the Chargers drop their record to 6-4.

Adelphi wasted no time as they struck for two runs in the bottom of the first inning. Senior Robert Paccione led off the ball game with a double and he later stole third. With one out and Paccione on third base, senior Ryan Boelsen reached on an error by the Chargers Tommy Maloney, Paccione scored on the play. Paccione led Adelphi with four hits and finished the game 4-of-5 with two RBI's.

Senior Bill Melillo continued the inning for the Panthers as his single advanced Boelsen to third base and with two outs in the bottom of the frame, freshman Lucas Romeo drove home Boelsen with a base knock giving Adelphi a 2-0 advantage.

Trailing 4-0 into the top of the fifth inning, Dominican squandered an excellent opportunity to put some runs on the board. After consecutive singles leading off the frame by junior Maloney and sophomore Dan Robinson, the Chargers had runners at second and first with no outs. Junior Marc Mortellaro would hit into a fielder's choice advancing the runners to second and third with one out. Bartlett struck out Xavier Bonilla. Bartlett would walk the next batter and with the bases full of Chargers, Bartlett did not let the base runners bother him as he struck out freshman Nick Simmons to end the threat.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Panthers capitalized with two outs scoring two runs on the board. Freshman Craig Matteo scored the Panthers' fifth run of the ballgame on a single by senior Mike Colonna. Colonna would later cross the plate on a base hit by Paccione to put Adelphi on top 6-0.

Harper scored the Panthers final run of the afternoon in the bottom of the eight after senior Billy Neubauer walked with the bases loaded. Junior Teddy Rohrs relieved Bartlett in the top of the 9th inning, striking out the side to end the game.

The Panthers return to action on Thursday, March 19 when they host Felician College at 3:30 p.m.