FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (February 19, 2017) – The Rutgers University-Newark baseball team ended its opening weekend to the 2017 season with a big 18-4 win over Penn State University-Abington Sunday morning.
 
The Scarlet Raiders improve to 2-1 on the young season, while PSU-Abington drops to 0-3. R-N played three games in the Fayetteville Tournament to begin the year, earning wins over Stevenson and the Lions, but falling to Frostburg State University. Rutgers-Newark will return to action February 28 against PSU-Abington at Diamond Nation in Flemington, N.J. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.
 
Despite the 9 a.m. Sunday first pitch, the Rutgers-Newark offense clicked from the start, scoring eight runs in the first and one in the second to open a 9-2 lead and the Raiders never looked back.
 
In the first, junior Anthony Perconte singled and stole two bases, junior Adam Tricarico was hit by a pitch and junior Ross Halkias homered to put Newark on top 3-0. Senior Josh Cote – who bunted his way on and then stole second – came around to score on a double from freshman Colin Powers. Powers would cross the dish on a wild pitch for the fifth run of the frame, junior Nick Dispenza scored run number six after reaching on an error, and junior Brian Boulineau drove in sophomore Ryan Zucker – who delivered a base hit earlier in the inning. Perconte closed the scoring with his second run of the top half of the first on a wild pitch.
 
Abington would push across two runs in its half of the first, but Newark scored its ninth run of the contest in the second inning when Cote scored his second run of the game after a base knock, stolen base and wild pitch.
 
The Lions scored a pair in the third inning to make it an 8-4 game, but it was all Rutgers-Newark from that point on as the Scarlet Raiders scored one run in the fourth, two in the fifth and three more in the sixth to go up 15-4.
 
Freshman JC Ball singled in Halkias for the R-N run in the fourth, and Halkias came through with a two-out hit to drive in Perconte and Boulineau in the fifth inning.
 
Dispenza and Zucker began the sixth with hits, Dispenza crossed on a sac fly from Boulineau and Zucker came in thanks to a wild pitch. Junior Adam Tricarico singled, stole second and scored on a two-out single from freshman Connor Clare for run 15.
 
Rutgers-Newark tacked on two runs on the eighth and one more marker in the top half of the ninth for the final score.
 
Junior Mike Zibrin earned the win (1-0) for the Scarlet Raiders, going 5.0 innings and allowing four runs on seven hits and four walks. The righty struck out five on the day. Senior Chas Bohannon had an excellent return to the hill after missing last year to injury, tossing three innings and allowing no runs on just one hit with four strikeouts. Freshman Brandon Terrizzi tossed a scoreless ninth with two strikeouts.
 
Newark pounded out 18 hits for its 18 runs and all nine Scarlet Raiders in the starting lineup had at least one knock. Halkias led the way, going 3-for-4 with four RBI, a homer and two runs, and Cote was 3-for-5 with two runs scored and a run batted in. Boulineau had his second-straight multi-hit game, going 2-for-3 with two RBI and a double, while Zucker went 2-for-5 with two runs scored and a double. Perconte scored three runs (1-for-4), Tricarico and Dispenza each had two runs and a hit, while Clare went 2-for-2 with two RBI.