LIU Brooklyn stunned top-seeded Bryant in a game that was interrupted by a rain delay to open the first day of the 2013 NEC Baseball Tournament. Following the upset, No. 2 seed, and two-time defending tourney champion, Sacred Heart sent Monmouth to a 7-1 defeat in the day's second game. Bryant and Monmouth will square off in an elimination game on Friday, May 24 at FirstEnergy Park with first pitch slated for 12:00 pm. Sacred Heart and LIU Brooklyn will clash in the winners' bracket game at 3:30 pm. Both contests will air live on NEC Front Row.

Game 2
#2 Sacred Heart 7, #3 Monmouth 1

Box Score

Lakewood, NJ - Troy Scribner must love pitching at the NEC Tournament. 

For the third consecutive year, Sacred Heart’s senior ace went the distance and delivered a victory on the first day of the double-elimination championship event.

Scribner limited Monmouth to one run on six hits in a 7-1 win that puts the two-time defending NEC champion Pioneers into Friday afternoon’s winners’ bracket game against No. 4 seed LIU Brooklyn.  The 2012 NEC Tournament MVP opened the 2013 edition of the event by striking out 10 and walking only one.

In three NEC Tournament starts, Scribner is 3-0 with a 1.33 ERA. Over 27.0 innings, the righty has allowed only four earned runs on 19 hits.  He has walked only one and struck out 23 batters in that time.

The Sacred Heart offense began supporting Scribner in the second inning. After Monmouth shortstop Jon Guida’s RBI single plated Owen Stewart with the game’s first run in the top half of the inning, the Pioneers put five runs on the board in the bottom half of the frame on the strength of five hits and a costly Hawks’ error.

Scribner needed no more and was rarely threatened the rest of the way.

He received some insurance in the eighth inning when SHU catcher Rocco Gondek blasted a two-run shot over the concourse behind the leftfield wall, extending the Pioneers’ lead to 7-1.  Gondek finished with three RBI with the first coming via  a hit by pitch during the Pioneers’ five-run second.

First baseman Dave  Boisture and rightfielder Jayson Sullivan each had two hits for Sacred Heart.

Guida was 2-for-3 with an RBI for Monmouth.
 

Game 1
#4 LIU Brooklyn 7, #1 Bryant 2

Box Score

Lakewood, NJ - This time, the lightning came after the rain storm.

LIU Brooklyn came out of a 69-minute rain delay and promptly plated four runs to take a lead over Bryant and its two-time all-NEC first team pitcher Peter Kelich. 

Those four runs were more than enough for Blackbirds’ ace Justin Topa.  The righty went the distance to notch a 7-2 victory over the top-seeded Bulldogs in Game 1 of the 2013 NEC Baseball Championship.

Topa, who improved to 8-6 while lowering his ERA to 4.05, surrendered only one earned run on five hits and a walk. He struck out six.

LIU freshman Tom Jakubowski was in the batter’s box with a 2-2 count against Kelich when the skies opened up over FirstEnergy Park.  When play resumed, Kelich caught Jakubowski looking at Strike 3, but then came the LIU lightning strike.

Six of the next seven batters singled as the Blackbirds effectively played station-to-station baseball.

After four runs were in, Kelich fanned Tito Marrero to stop the bleeding.

LIU finally chased Kelich from the game in the sixth inning when shortstop John Ziznewski laced a two-out hit to score Marrero and make the score 6-1 in favor of the No. 4 seed.
Kelich, who had not given up six runs in a start since March 2011, was charged with six earned runs on 11 hits and one walk.  He struck out six batters over his 5.2 innings of work.

Bryant had the chance to tie the 2004 Central Connecticut team for the most overall wins (41) in NEC single-season history, but must now wait for tomorrow to take another swing at the record.

On an interesting note, that CCSU club came out of the losers’ bracket to win the 2004 NEC Tournament, which coincidentally took place in Lakewood, NJ.

While the Bulldogs were unable to capitalize on their chance at history, Ziznewski seized his.  The shortstop went 5-for-5 with three RBI and a run scored to become LIU’s all-time single-season hits leader (73).

LIU designated hitter Kevin Needham, who was a high school teammate of Bryant’s Kelich, logged two RBI for the winning side.

Sophomore John Mullen, who went 2-for-4 in his NEC Tournament debut, drove in both of Bryant’s runs.