SPRINGFIELD, MA- The Wheaton College baseball team recorded its
30th win for the sixth straight season on Tuesday afternoon at
Western New England College, as the nationally-ranked Lyons handed
the Golden Bears an 11-4 defeat in non-conference action at
Trelease Park.
A winner in 27 of its last 31 games, Wheaton, which is ranked
16th nationally by D3baseball.com and second in New England,
improved to 30-8 with four regular season games remaining.
Seeing its five-game winning streak snapped, Western New England,
which sits third in the region and 23rd in the American Baseball
Coaches Association (ABCA) national poll, closed out its regular
season today while falling to 33-10.
The Lyons broke open a 3-3 game after three innings with five
runs in the top half of the fourth. Junior Tad Skelley (Wolfeboro, NH/Holderness School) and freshman
Eric Jensen (Gorham, NH/Gorham) each smacked three
hits on the day, with Skelley becoming just the fourth Wheaton
player to record two triples in a game. Skelley scored three
times, and Jensen drove in a pair.
Junior Sean Munley (Trenton, NJ/The Hun School of
Princeton) accounted for three RBI and a pair of hits,
while sophomore Hal Landers (Salem, NH/Salem) went
2-for-4 with two runs, two RBI and three stolen bases, as he swiped
three bags for the second time this spring. Senior
Paul Malaguti (Andover, MA/Andover) and freshman
Sean Ryan (Norton, MA/Norton) scored two runs
apiece.
Freshman Corey Laliberte (Fall River, MA/B.M.C.
Durfee) earned the win on the hill as one of five Wheaton
pitchers to throw, improving to 5-1 while surrendering three earned
runs with two strikeouts and three walks in five innings. The
Lyons' bullpen tossed four shutout frames of three-hit ball to help
preserve the win.
For the Golden Bears, junior Jason Leclerc (Chicopee,
MA/Chicopee) was 2-for-3, freshman Mike Rubino
(Northford, CT/Hill Regional Career) plated two, junior
Ryan Dudzinski (Bristol, CT/Bristol Central) drew
three walks, and classmate Zach Cloft (Glastonbury,
CT/Glastonbury) suffered his first loss on the mound,
giving up eight runs, four of which were earned, on eight hits
while fanning one batter and walking another in 3.2 innings.
Wheaton pushed three runs across on three hits in the
first. Landers scored on a wild pitch, while Munley and
junior Hadi Raad (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY/Hastings)
each drove in a run. After the hosts scored a run in each of
the first three innings to even the score, the Lyons took an 8-3
advantage in the fourth. Another Western New England wild
pitch gave Wheaton the lead for good. Munley doubled home two
in the frame, while Jensen and Malaguti had an RBI apiece.
The Golden Bears made the score 8-4 in the fifth, but Jensen's
RBI single in the sixth pushed the Lyon edge back to five.
Western New England left the bases jammed in the home half of the
frame, and Wheaton tacked on single runs in the seventh and ninth
to complete the scoring.
The Lyons will host nationally-ranked Eastern Connecticut State
University in their home finale on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. The
Warriors are ranked 14th in D3baseball.com's poll and fourth in the
region.
