AUBURNDALE, FL- The Wheaton College baseball team scored 12
unanswered runs during its season opener against in-region foe
Suffolk University on Sunday afternoon, as the Lyons downed the
Rams, 12-1 at the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex.
Wheaton is ranked 20th nationally in the most recent
D3baseball.com poll, while Suffolk, which opened its season
yesterday, fell to 1-2.
Four Lyons recorded multiple hits, while sophomore righty
Nolan Corr (Somersworth, NH/Saint Thomas Aquinas)
was victorious in his first collegiate start. Corr scattered
seven hits and fanned two batters over 5.1 innings while yielding
the lone run. Freshman hurler Corey Laliberte (Fall
River, MA/B.M.C. Durfee) notched a save in his debut after
tossing three scoreless innings of two-hit ball.
Senior Paul Malaguti (Andover, MA/Andover),
juniors Eric Laliberte (Nashua, NH/Bishop Guertin)
and Tad Skelley (Wolfeboro, NH/Holderness School),
and sophomore John Keating (Duxbury, MA/Northfield Mount
Hermon School) had two hits apiece. Malaguti scored
two runs, Laliberte smacked a double, Skelley drove in a pair of
runs, and Keating plated two and added a double.
Sophomore leadoff hitter Hal Landers (Salem,
NH/Salem) produced three walks, a pair of stolen bases and
two runs, while junior Hadi Raad (Hastings-on-Hudson,
NY/Hastings) and sophomore Dan Haugh (Andover,
MA/Saint John's Prep) accounted for two RBI apiece.
Senior Jason Clucas (Peabody, MA/Saint John's
Prep) and junior Sean Munley (Trenton, NJ/The Hun
School of Princeton) each drew two walks.
After surrendering a run in the first, Wheaton knotted the score
in the home half before tacking on five runs in the third, chasing
the Suffolk starter after just 2.2 frames. Haugh singled home
Landers in the first before Keating delivered a two-run chopper
over the outstretched reach of the Ram shortstop two innings later,
as the Lyons loaded the bags to open the third. Haugh, Munley
and Skelley each drove in a run.
After giving up a double to open the game, Corr settled in to
retire 11 of his next 14 batters into the fifth inning. The
Blue and White added single runs in the fifth and seventh frames to
extend its advantage to 8-1 before putting the game out of reach
with a four-run eighth. Raad played a part in three of
Wheaton's runs, delivering a two-RBI triple and scoring on a wild
pitch. Freshman Justin Connor's (Arlington,
MA/Arlington) run-scoring grounder to short completed the
scoring.
Wheaton's next two games are against nationally-ranked State
University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland, beginning with
tomorrow's contest at 3:00 p.m. The Red Dragons sit 19th in
the D3baseball.com poll.
