BRISTOL, R.I.—Senior Nicholas Browne (Mount Laurel, N.J.) and junior Matthew Valente (Wyckoff, N.J.) both drove in three runs, and sophomore Tyler Bell (Abington, Mass.) recorded the final four outs to record his first career save to help No. 12/8 Babson College defeat Roger Williams University, 11-9, in non-conference baseball action on Wednesday afternoon at Paolino Field.
The win was the 15th in a row for Babson (16-2), which surpassed last year's 14-game streak for the longest in program history. Roger Williams dropped its third straight game to fall to 6-11-1 on the year.
Browne went 2-for-3 with a double, a homer, two walks and two runs scored, while Valente was 2-for-3 with two walks and four runs scored to lead the Beavers' 12-hit attack. Senior Brian McHale (Ramsey, N.J.) had two singles and two RBI, classmate Eric Jaun (Loveland, Ohio) finished 2-for-5 with a double and two runs scored, and junior Jake Oliger (Newtown, Conn.) scored twice and extended his hitting streak to 20 games with a sixth-inning single.
Sophomore Peter Feinman (Virginia Beach, Va.), one of seven pitchers used by Babson, recorded three strikeouts in an inning of work to improve to 2-0 win the win.
Junior Danny Roth (West Hartford, Conn.) went 3-for-5 with a home run, two RBI and four runs scored, while classmate Justin Stone (Blackstone, Mass.) and first-year Tommy Hobin (Madison, Conn.) contributed three hits and an RBI apiece for the Hawks, who finished with 15 hits. Rookie Anthony Sapienza (North Andover, Mass.) shouldered the loss to fall to 1-2 after giving up eight runs, six of them earned, on nine hits to go along with six strikeouts in 5.0 innings.
Roth hit a two-run bomb with two outs in the bottom of the first to give Roger Williams a 2-1 lead, but Browne answered with a three-run blast to put the Green and White back in front 4-2 an inning later. The Hawks tied it in the last of the second and took the lead again in the third after Roth singled and scored on an error to make it 5-4.
The Beavers regained control of the game with a four-run sixth that included a two-run single by Valente for an 8-5 advantage. Valente drove in another run in the seventh and scored later in the frame when McHale legged out an infield single to extend the lead to 10-5. Roger Williams cut into its deficit with a pair of runs in the last of the seventh and two more in the eighth to get within one, but McHale came through with another two-out RBI knock giving Babson an 11-9 cushion.
Bell, who ended the eighth with a pickoff at first, allowed back-to-back singles before getting a foul out to Valente at first and a double-play ball to finish off the victory.
Both teams return to action on Friday at 3:30 p.m. as the Beavers open a three-game series with No. 25/23 Wheaton in Norton, Mass., while the Hawks travel to Salve Regina.
GAME NOTES
• Babson is now 6-3 all-time against Roger Williams.
• Over their last 34 contests, the Beavers own winning streaks of 15 and 14 games.
• Oliger is now one of just three players in school history with a hitting streak of 20 games or longer. McHale put together a 20-game streak from the end of 2017 through the early part of 2018, and Dave Ahern '11 hit in a school-record 24 straight outings from the end of 2010 through the start of the 2011 campaign.