Box Score
Garden City, N.Y. – The Adelphi University baseball team finished a Northeast-10 Conference Southwest Division series with a 6-4 win over Assumption College at William J. Bonomo Memorial Field on Sunday. The Panthers took two-of-three in the weekend tilt to improve to 17-15-1 overall and 6-3 in the division, while the Greyhounds drop to 10-21 overall and 5-3 in the Southwest.
Senior pitcher
Dillon McNamara picked up his 10th save of the season to become Adelphi's single season saves record holder, passing the mark previously held by Mike Thompson '05 and Bill Foster '77. McNamara is also the program's career saves record holder with 12.
The Panthers surrendered an early lead to fall behind 4-3 in the fifth, but a three run outburst in the home half put Adelphi ahead for good to take the series. Four Panthers recorded two hits on the day, led by
Anthony Zarrella with a pair of RBI base hits and
Richard Mejia with a double and a run scored.
Donato Signore pushed the go-ahead run across with a single in the fifth, while
Brandon Stahl cracked two hits and drove in a run.
Jimmy Milani earned his third win of the year on the mound in five innings of work with four strikeouts, and
John Bivas threw 2.1 frames of one-hit, shutout relief to bridge the gap to McNamara with one out in the eighth.
Assumption also saw four players rip two hits and was paced by Billy Johnson's 2-5 performance with two RBI. Travis Smith and Bret Clark each had two hits and doubled, while Shane Keddy and Travis Smith both singled twice, scored once and drove in one.
Zack LaRosa took the loss on the hill over five innings and surrendered five earned runs on 10 hits. Cody Rocha delivered three scoreless frames out of the bullpen and struck out three.
Adelphi jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first after two singles and an error loaded the bases. Zarrella flared an RBI single to left, and Signore followed two batters later with a grounder that prompted a throwing error to allow
Kevin Hutzel to score. The Greyhounds halved the deficit on Smith's RBI single in the top of the third, but Zarrella delivered his second RBI of the game in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-1.
Both squads went scoreless in the fourth, but Assumption assembled a three-run rally to take a 4-3 lead in the fifth. Clark lined a leadoff single, stole second and scored on Keddy's base hit to right to bring the score to 3-2. Smith followed with a double, and Johnson's base hit brought Smith and Keddy both in to score and give the visitors their first lead of the day.
The Panthers quickly reclaimed the lead on three runs with two outs in the home half.
Vincent Sharkey worked a full count and slapped a leadoff single to left, and Zarrella wore a pitch in the back to put runners on first and second with two gone. Zito blooped a single to center that tied things up, and Signore sliced a two-strike fastball for a base hit through the right to take a 5-4 lead. Stahl then ripped a groundout between third and short for Adelphi's third straight hit, giving the hosts a 6-4 advantage to which they would hold the rest of the game.
Bivas came on in the sixth for Adelphi and faced just one over the minimum over two innings. The lefty recorded the first out of the eighth, but a free pass prompted the call to McNamara, who worked around another walk to retire the side.
Assumption threatened in the ninth with an error and an infield single to put runners at first and second with no one out. McNamara fired a three-pitch strikeout for out number one, and Zito saved a potential run when he made a sliding grab to rob Johnson of a single in the gap. McNamara buckled down and struck out the final batter on three pitches to secure the program's single season saves record.
The Panthers return to action on Tuesday when they head to Pace University for an NE-10 Southwest contest at 3:30 p.m.
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