NEWPORT, R.I. – Both the Salve Regina University and Wentworth Institute of Technology baseball teams closed their regular season Saturday, with Salve Regina taking a 6-3 win over the Leopards. The game was a make-up of the teams' Thursday afternoon contest, which was postponed due to rain.
Graduate student Tom Glynn (Woodbridge, Conn.), senior Brandon Bursie (Smithfield, R.I.), and freshman Dominic De Sano (Central Falls, R.I.) each drove in runs for the Seahawks (20-19, 14-8), who will travel to Boston on Tuesday for a The Commonwealth Coast Conference (TCCC) Quarterfinal game with the Leopards (22-13, 14-8 TCCC) on Tuesday. Freshman Jon Spitz (Hanover, Mass.) was 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI, while senior Brendon Duffy (Lynn, Mass.) reached safely in three plate appearances, going 2-for-2 with a walk.
Glynn staked the Seahawks to a 1-0 lead in the first when he plated senior Charles Matarazzo (Montville, N.J.) with a single through the left side. Bursie laced a one-out triple with one out in the third and scored on a sac fly by De Sano in the second to push the lead to 2-0.
The Leopards committed three errors in the third inning, and the Seahawks capitalized by pushing across three more runs to take a 5-0 lead. Glynn attempted a sacrifice bunt two on and none out, but a throwing error allowed Alex Melcher (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) to score from second. Junior Nick Politelli (Warwick, R.I.) was on first base on the play and came around to score on the second throwing error of the frame, making it 4-0. Later in the frame, junior Matt Capone (East Providence, R.I.) plated Glynn with an RBI groundout.
Wentworth scraped across a single run in the fourth and two more in the fifth, cutting the deficit to 5-3. Senior Ben Danker (Branford, Conn.) drove in the Leopards first run of the afternoon with a single to center in the fourth, and Spitz tripled in two more with a shot to center in the fifth. The Seahawks answered with a run in their half of the fifth when Bursie reached on an error, allowing Glynn to score from third and giving SRU a 6-3 lead.
Freshman Devin Flynn (Auburn, Maine) pitched two perfect innings to start the game and improved to 5-1 with the win. Sophomore Dan Kehew (Portsmouth, R.I.) worked the final two innings to earn his third save of the season. Sophomore Matt Thomas (Harwich, Mass.) took the loss for the Leopards, allowing four hits and six runs (three earned) in 4.2 innings of work.
Wentworth will be seeded fourth in the upcoming tournament, while Salve Regina will be fifth. The two teams met in the same 4v5 game a season ago, with the Seahawks taking a 14-6 win. The Leopards clawed their way out of the loser's bracket to face Salve Regina in the bracket final, and won 17-5, before losing the "if necessary" game, 8-3. It will be the ninth time the two teams have met in the postseason with Salve Regina holding a 5-3 advantage.