Baseball Claims First NE10 Win, Halves Twin Bill against Saint Rose
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – The Merrimack baseball team earned a 5-4 come-from-behind walk-off victory over Saint Rose in game one of Saturday's doubleheader. The Golden Knights took a 3-1 decision in the nightcap. The Warriors progressed to 8-13 on the year and 1-8 in the Northeast-10. Saint Rose moves to 10-14 overall with a 4-8 mark in the conference.
Beau Batchelor (Peabody, Mass.) and Mike Dooling (Milford, Conn.) each went 3-for-7 from the plate while adding a run on the afternoon for Merrimack. Tim Curran (South Weymouth, Mass.) also registered three hits for the Warriors including a solo shot over the right field fence in game two.
Mark O'Flynn (Ipswich, Mass.) opened the doubleheader with a triple and scored Merrimack's first run of the day on a wild pitch.
The Golden Knights leveled the score at 1-1 on a sacrifice fly to centerfield by Ryan Price in the third inning. Saint Rose took a 2-1 lead the following frame with another sacrifice fly by Garrett Keenan.
Price and Keenan each drove in runs with RBI doubles in the fifth to escalate the visitors' advantage to 4-1.
After raking a one-out single in the eighth, Dooling scored on an error by the catcher to draw Merrimack to within two runs. PJ Farnham (Andover, Mass.) made it a one-run contest with an RBI single to plate Joe Santos (Ashland, Mass.).
Down by one in the ninth inning, Batchelor knocked a leadoff double and moved to third on a balk to put the tying run 90 feet from home plate. O'Flynn tied the game at 4-4 with an RBI double to push Batchelor across the plate.
O'Flynn, representing the game-winning run, advanced to third on a Curran groundout to the second baseman. Joe Mantoni (Hopedale, Mass.) singled to drive in O'Flynn to secure the Warriors' first Northeast-10 Conference victory of the 2011 slate in walkoff fashion.
Mantoni went seven innings on the mound for Merrimack with nine strikeouts. Travis Terrill (Hudson, N.H.) tossed an inning of relief and fanned a pair of batsmen. Chris Pinette (Norwood, Mass.) picked up his first win of the year after pitching the ninth inning for the Warriors and retiring all three batters that he faced.
Saint Rose took a 1-0 lead in the third inning and extended its advantage to three as Ryan Burke homered to drive in a pair of runs in the fourth.
Merrimack responded with a solo blast in the bottom half of the fourth by Curran to put the Warriors on the board.
The home team had three base runners in the final five frames and was unable to slice into the Golden Knights' lead.
Mike Laracy (Weymouth, Mass.) threw five innings on the hill for Merrimack with two batters retired by way of the "K". The Warriors bullpen held Saint Rose to two hits and no runs in four innings of action. Keith Johansen (Tyngsborough, Mass.) and Brian Wolfendale (Methuen, Mass.) each worked two frames in a relief effort.
"I was very pleased with the way that our guys battled back to get the walk off win in game one. We needed to bring that same level of focus and intensity in game two in order to succeed," said head coach Jim Martin. "It feels good to get that first conference win under our belt but we'll need to work harder to earn more."
Merrimack continues Northeast-10 action with a double feature at Saint Anselm Sunday, April 10. Game one of the twin bill is a conference game and game two is a non-league tilt.
