BEVERLY, Mass. – The No. 16/19 Endicott baseball team opened its best-of-three NCAA Super Regional with a 4-2 loss to No. 18/21 Baldwin Wallace on Friday at North Field.
WP (9-2): Drew Wilson (Sagamore Hills, Ohio) – 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K
LP (8-1): Gabe Van Emon (Lexington, Mass.) – 6.2 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 4 K
For the second straight game, Alex Ludwick (Brunswick, Ohio) hit a two-run, first-inning home run for Baldwin Wallace, giving the Yellow Jackets – who played as the home team in today’s contest – a 2-0 lead, by lifting a fly ball just over the fence in left for an opposite-field dinger.
The Gulls forged a tie with single runs in the second and third frames.
Endicott loaded the bases with one out in the second before halving the deficit on Kyle Grabowski‘s (Westfield, Mass.) deep fly to left. Nicolas Notarangelo (Taunton, Mass.) reached on a third-inning fielder’s choice and moved 90 feet on a wild pitch before John Mulready‘s (Peabody, Mass.) two-out RBI single over the second baseman knotted the contest.
Notarangelo walked with two down in the seventh, stole second, and moved to third on a wild pitch, but a strikeout left the potential go-ahead run at third base.
Mark Mohnickey Jr. (North Ridgeville, Ohio) led off the home half with an opposite-field homer off the rock ledge in left field, going deep for the third straight game.
Baldwin Wallace continued to threaten in the frame, as Ludwick launched a drive to right center just beyond center fielder Caleb Shpur‘s (East Canaan, Conn.) reach, but the Gulls cut Ludwick down trying to take third behind an 8-6-5 relay.
Wilson, who started in right field before moving to the mound in the sixth inning, punched a single through the right side to drive home an insurance run in the eighth inning.
Joseph Millar‘s (Lake Hopatcong, N.J.) single off of a diving Ryan Guggenheim’s (Solon, Ohio) glove at second base with one out in the ninth ended a string of 18 consecutive Gulls going without a hit, and brought the tying run to the plate.
Wilson induced a fielder’s choice grounder for the second out and a routine fly ball to center to cap the win.
Mulready finished 1-for-2 with a run, an RBI, a walk, and a hit by pitch for the Gulls, while Ludwick was 2-for-4 with a run, two RBI, a double, and the home run for the Yellow Jackets.
Dawson Gabe (Lawrence, Ind.) tossed the first five innings for Baldwin Wallace, allowing two runs on four hits with four walks and four strikeouts while taking a no-decision.
BEYOND THE BOX SCORE
- Endicott made its first NCAA Super Regional appearance while facing Baldwin Wallace for the first time.
- The Yellow Jackets entered the day ranked among NCAA Division III’s top 10 in home runs per game (fourth), slugging percentage (fourth), doubles (fifth), home runs (sixth), runs (seventh), scoring average (eighth), hits (eighth) and batting average (ninth).
- Endicott’s 16-game home winning streak came to an end, as the Gulls moved to 22-2 on North Field this season and 27-2 since last April.
- Van Emon’s loss was his first in 27 career outings (8-1).
- Three nice defensive plays limited the Yellow Jackets in the home half of the second, with Van Emon backhanding a sac bunt heading toward no-man’s land for the first out before fielding a hard grounder for the final out. In between, Grabowski snared a tailing line drive at third ticketed for an RBI double down the line.
- Notarangelo laid out in left center to rob Luke Vonderhaar (New Bremen, Ohio), Baldwin Wallace’s top power threat, of a hit during the third inning, when first base Jake Nardone (Wakefield, Mass.) fielded a high chopper and beat a sliding Ludwick to the bag before ending the frame by picking a throw in the turf.
- Guggenheim turned in a pair of gems himself at second base in the middle innings, diving to his left to field a grounder for the final out of the fourth before leaping to pull in the first out of the fifth.
- Notarangelo backpedaled on Mohnickey’s opposite-field line drive to left in the fifth before reaching over his head to pull in the catch, the 16th consecutive batter Van Emon held without a hit following Ludwick’s first-inning homer. Vincent Capolupo (Kenmore, N.Y.), the next hitter, cracked a hard single through the right side before finding his way to third base following a wild pitch and an ensuing error, but Matthew McKinley (Hudson, N.H.) fielded a slow roller to shortstop and tossed to Nardone, who made a nice pick at first base, for the final out to strand the go-ahead run.
- To begin the Endicott sixth, shortstop Ludwick went deep into the hole to take a ground ball on his backhand before making a jump throw to nip Dylan Pacheco (Dartmouth, Mass.) at first base. His counterpart on the opposite team turned in a key play to end the home half, with McKinley taking a hard chopper and stepping on second with two on and two out.
- Shpur slid to catch a flare to short center field for the first out of the seventh inning.
WHAT’S NEXT
The second contest of the series between Endicott (40-9) and Baldwin Wallace (36-11) begins on Saturday at 10 AM, an hour in advance of the originally scheduled time of 11 AM due to potential inclement weather later in the day. The if-necessary game is scheduled for 45 minutes following the conclusion of game two.
