BROOKLYN, NY – The St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) baseball team scored two runs in the seventh inning to overtake John Jay College 2-1 on Tuesday afternoon at MCU Park.
The win moves the Bears (14-15) within one game of .500 and they improve to 3-1 at MCU Park this season and 6-2 in the all-time series versus the Bloodhounds. John Jay falls to 7-26 and the two teams will square off again in two days.
Junior Paul Piccirillo (Brooklyn, NY/Xaverian) remained perfect on the season, notching his eigth win, a category he was ranked tied for eighth in Division III entering the game. Piccirillo struck out a career-high 11 batters, matching a school single-game record set by Chris Davidson in 2010. Piccirillo also went the distance for the fifth time this season.
John Jay scored their lone run in the second inning with the Bloodhounds knocking three singles to load the bases with one out. Leo Espinal hit a sacrifice fly that scored Brian McKenna but Piccirillo escaped the jam with a grounder, allowing his only run.
Piccirillo settled down after that allowing just one more hit for the remainder of the game.
The Bears finally broke through in the seventh against Bloodhound reliever Mark Marte whenVinny Rossi (Bayside, NY/Holy Cross) hit a single to right and advanced to scoring position on an error. Mike Cundari (Staten Island, NY/St. Peter's) followed with a single through the right side that scored Rossi to knot game. Cundari scored the eventual game-winner three batters later when Joseph Boccia (Westwood, NJ/Westwood) legged out a two-out, infield single, the throw to get him going wild and allowing Cundari to score.
Courtesy of two hit batters with two outs in the eighth, the Bloodhounds a runner representing the tying run into scoring position, but Piccirillo notched his 10th strikeout to end the inning and worked a 1-2-3 inning in the ninth to seal the win.
Cundari and Boccia finished with multi-hit games, knocking a pair of singles as the Bears had seven hits in the contest. Rossi extended his hitting streak to 11 games and Cundari improved his to 10.
Both teams return to action on Thursday, April 19th with the Bears hosting the Bloodhounds at Padavan-Preller Field for a single game starting at 4 p.m.