WESTFIELD, Mass. – Westfield State University jumped out to an early 4-2 lead and held on to defeat Albertus Magnus College, 5-3, in a nonconference baseball game on Thursday, April 7.

Westfield's record is 8-12 while Albertus drops to 3-12.

The Owls won despite being outhit, 11-6, and going hitless for five complete innings until Jeff Ackerman led off the bottom of the eighth with a solo home run.

Albertus took an early 2-0 first-inning lead on a two-run single by Matt Caputo.

The Owls collected half of their six hits in the bottom of the first when they scored three runs. Pete Grillo walked and Matt Kelly and Andrew Medeiros both singled through the left side to load the bases.

Grillo scored on a wild pitch, Kelly crossed the plate on a sacrifice fly by Alex Cloutier and Medeiros scored on an RBI single by Kevin Greene.

Westfield scored a run in the second inning to take a 4-2 lead. Kelly clubbed a two-out triple to left-center field and scored on a wild pitch.

Albertus made the score 4-3 on a fifth-inning solo home run by Patrick Dornfried. Ackerman then posted the game's final run when he smashed his solo circuit shot over the left-center field fence in Westfield's final at bat.

Senior Sean Keane earned the pitching victory. He hurled the first five innings, allowing eight hits and no walks and striking out seven. Connor Buckley pitched three innings of effective relief, giving up only one hit. Nick Noblit notched the save despite giving up two singles with one out in the ninth inning. The final two outs were a caught looking strikeout and a groundout to the pitcher.

Kelly was 2 for 4 with two runs scored for the Owls. Zak Sokolis and Robert Bengivengo rapped two singles for Albertus.