OLD WESTBURY, NY --- (www.OLDWESTBURYPANTHERS.com) SUNY Old Westbury baseball put together an eight-run sixth inning Wednesday afternoon to fuel a 11-5 Skyline Conference Championship first-round win over the sixth-seeded College of Mount Saint Vincent Dolphins (17-21) from Jackie Robinson Athletic Complex. The third-seeded Panthers (21-14-1) improve to a 16-3 overall mark and hold a 2-0 record in postseason meetings against the Dolphins dating back to the 2011 campaign.
With the win, Old Westbury advances to the Skyline double elimination round hosted by the top-seeded Farmingdale State College. The Panthers last appearance in the double elimination round was in 2016 and will travel Friday (May 3) to Farmingdale, New York to take on the second-seeded United States Merchant Marine Academy Mariners (27-9) at 4 p.m. from Rams Field. Old Westbury and USMMA split the regular-season series, where the Mariners took the 5-2 game one win (Box Score) while the Panthers salvaged the split with a 7-4 victory (Box Score). Both teams will meet in the postseason for the first time since the 2013 ECAC Metro Region Championship Tournament, when the Panthers fell 6-3 on the road to the Mariners.
Old Westbury got to starter Peter Sanderson (L, 4-3: 5 IP, 7 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 3 K) with a single run in the opening inning. John Condon (2-for-5, R, 2 RBI, 2B) joined the 100-hit club with a run-scoring single through the left side to score Mike Manetta (1-for-5, 2 R, 2 RBI, SB) for the game's initial run while also extending his hitting streak to 16 games.
Mount Saint Vincent replied in the third inning as Matt DiNorcia (2-for-5, 3 R, 2B) reached base on a throwing miscue by shortstop Manetta and later scoring off a Isodoros Bartziokas (2-for-4, RBI, BB) single to even the game at one.
Peter Capel (2-for-5, R, HR, 2 RBI) crushed a two-RBI home run (third-career) over the right field fence for the Panthers to take the 3-1 lead.
In the fifth inning, the Dolphins put a pair of RBI doubles on the board courtesy of Michael Grisanti (2-for-5, R, RBI, 2B) and Anthony Nocero (2-for-4, R, 3 RBI, 2B) on starter Adam Heidenfelder (W, 4-1: 6 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, season-high 8 K) to knot the game at three.
Old Westbury blew the game wide open in the sixth inning by putting together eight runs on seven hits and two errors off Sanderson and reliever Amir Nitowski (2.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 3 ER, K). After taking a 5-3 lead off Sean Paprocki's (1-for-3, R, 2 RBI, 2B) two-RBI double, Manetta singled to right center to push across Michael Borsch and Paprocki for the game-winning runs. Two batters later, Condon collected his 200th-career hit with a team-leading 12th double to drive in Manetta for the 8-3 lead. Shaun Kaminski (1-for-4, R, HR, 2 RBI) kept his hitting streak alive and pushed it to seven games by launching his second-career home run over the left field fence to plate Condon home. Drew Robertson's (2-for-3, R, RBI) capped the scoring spree with a run-scoring single to make it an 11-3 game.
The Dolphins put single runs up in the eighth and ninth inning on reliever Joe Sarni (S, 3: 3 IP, 4 H, 2 R, ER, 2 K). Nocero cracked a leadoff solo shot over the left field fence in the eighth stanza. With one-out, DiNorcia was pushed 90 feet off of Nocero's ground out before Sarni induced Bartziokas into a flyout to settle the 11-5 final.