Northborough, MA (5/6/16) – The Lasell College baseball team fell to a late rally 7-4 to Suffolk University on a rainy Thursday evening in the Second Round of the 2016 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) tournament at the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough. Lasell dips to 20-16 overall, while Suffolk improves to a 31-10 mark on the 2016 season.
The Lasers mustered five hits on the evening, highlighted by a three-run shot to the fence from senior Dan Gagnon (Pomfret, Conn.). Junior Matt Haskell (Wallingford, Conn.) went 2-for-4 with a run scored, joining classmate Hector Coscione (Newton, Mass.), Gagnon, and freshman Evan Michalek at home plate.
Jon Lapolla (Providence, R.I.) opened the second inning with a base hit to left, followed by back to back walks to Drew Carter (Newburyport, Mass.) and Kevin Belskie (Norristown, Pa.) to load the bases. Junior Matt Brenner (Eliot, Maine) would pick up his first RBI of the evening drawing the base on balls, the third of the inning, to bring Lapolla home for the game's first run. Sean Cameron (Milford, Conn.) would then cap the inning off with a sacrifice fly to center bringing Carter home for the early 2-0 edge.
The lead would not last long as Lasell answered with three of their own in the next frame. Haskell singled to right to lead things off before a walk to Michalek with one out brought together the Lasers' threat. Gagnon would then connect on his team-leading third homer of the season, a three-run blast to left on a 3-1 fastball giving the Lasers the 3-2 lead.
Suffolk regained the lead at 4-3, which they would hold on to for the remainder when Brady Chant (Warwick, R.I.) hit a towering blast to left, a two-run shot. The homer was his second of the 2016 campaign brining home Belskie who led off the inning with one of his two walks on the night.
Brenner would add the insurances runs in the seventh. Following a leadoff walk to Lapolla, Frasca would single up the middle putting runners on the corners with no outs. Carter would then draw another base on balls loading up the bases, and after a shallow fly to center when no runners advanced, Brenner laced a double down the left field line scoring all three runners making it a 7-3 game.
Chuck Gibson (Malden, Mass.) went seven innings on the mound scattering just three hits while punching out eight Lasers' hitters to move to a 5-1 record on the season. Gibson would give way to Cal Carroll (Methuen, Mass.) in the eighth with runners on first and second and nobody out. Carroll escaped the threat allowing just one run to cross on a wild pitch, before hurling a scoreless ninth inning to pick up his conference-leading eighth save of the season.
Both teams will now await the results from the GNAC quarterfinals matchup. Following a three-day holdup due to the inclement weather in the region, fourth-seed Johnson & Wales finished off their suspended game from the night before with a 7-0 win over Albertus Magnus College on Thursday. The Wildcats will now travel to top-seed St. Joseph's College (Me.) at 3:30pm on Friday.
Lasell will play Friday's loser in an elimination game beginning at 10:00 a.m., while Suffolk will take on the winner of that contest on Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm with the winner advancing to Sunday's championship.
All games on the weekend will be played at Scots Miracle-Gro Complex on the campus of Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Release Courtesy of Suffolk University Sports Information