SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - The Wheaton College baseball team pounded out a season-best 20 hits, including four apiece from junior Hal Landers (Salem, N.H./Salem) and sophomore Eric Jensen (Gorham, N.H./Gorham), as the Lyons completed their three-game series sweep over Springfield College in Tuesday's 14-5 New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) win at Berry-Allen Field.

Wheaton, which is receiving votes in today's D3baseball.com national poll while ranking sixth in the region by the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA), won its sixth consecutive game and 11th of 12 to improve to 19-6 overall and 10-5 in league play, tying Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for second place with three games left.  Eliminated from the postseason, Springfield is 9-17 and 3-12.

The Lyons had seven players record multi-hit performances.  Jensen went 4-for-5 with four runs and two RBI, while Landers was 4-for-7 with a pair of runs.  Senior Sean Munley (Ewing, N.J./The Hun School of Princeton batted 3-for-5 and plated two, while classmate Tad Skelley (Wolfeboro, N.H./Holderness School) drove in three with two hits.  Sophomore Paul O'Neill (Framingham, Mass./Framingham) also had three RBI.

Classmate Dan Gusovsky (Andover, Mass./Andover) went 2-for-3 with two RBI and a pair of walks, junior Dan Haugh (Andover, Mass./Saint John's Prep) accounted for three runs and two hits, while senior Eric Laliberte (Nashua, N.H./Bishop Guertin) notched two hits and two runs.

Wheaton used six pitchers on the day, as freshman starter Alec Palioca (Wrentham, Mass./King Philip Regional) retired the first six batters he faced and eight of his initial nine before running into trouble in the fourth.  Five Lyon relievers were rock solid, allowing zero earned runs on just three hits over the last 5.1 innings.  Sophomore Justin Dickinson (Stratford, Conn./Bunnell) picked up the win, while Wheaton's final four relievers combined to set down 12 batters in a row.

Seniors D.J. McGee (Worcester, Mass./Saint Peter-Marian) and Kevin Calabro (Andover, Mass./Andover) occupied the sixth and seventh frames, respectively, while junior David Longley (Brunswick, Maine/Brunswick) tossed a perfect eighth and freshman Ryan Grant (Easton, Mass./Avon Old Farms School) a 1-2-3 ninth, as the righthander extended his shutout innings streak to 12.

Two Pride players had two hits apiece, while senior Steve Forbes (Northport, N.Y./Harborfields) took the loss after surrendering nine earned runs and 12 hits with three strikeouts and four walks in 4.2 innings.

Wheaton picked up three runs on three hits in the first before tacking on single runs in the third and fourth to make the score 5-0.  The hosts narrowed their gap to one at 5-4 thanks to a four-run fourth, only to see the Lyons match the Pride with four runs in the top of the fifth for a 9-4 advantage.  Gusovsky and Jensen each were responsible for two-run singles in the frame.

Springfield singled home a fifth-inning run to make the score 9-5 but didn't place a runner on base the rest of the way.  Meanwhile, Wheaton used a three-run seventh and a two-two run eighth to put the game out of reach.  Skelley delivered a two-out, two-run base knock in the seventh.

Wheaton breaks from league action on Thursday when it hosts Roger Williams University at 3:30 p.m.