NEW LONDON, Conn. – Senior Niko Bedell (Manorville, N.Y.) became the 18th player in program history to collect his 100th career hit as Becker College defeated Coast Guard 14-3 in non-conference baseball action. The win was the Hawks first over a NEWMAC opponent since defeating WPI on April 25, 2006.
Sophomore Evan Barrera (Warwick, R.I.) had three hits and three RBI's while junior Christopher Testa (Providence, R.I.) and Bedell both homered leading Becker offense
The Hawks picked up pair of unearned runs in the second, but blew the game open five runs in the third as Testa hit a two-run homer to left before Bedell's towering 3-run blast to left gave the Hawks a 7-0 lead.
Barrera's RBI single in the fourth pushed the lead to 8-0 before the Bears got in the board in the home half of the fourth as sophomore Reed Jenkins drove in the first run of his career with a single scoring senior Timbo Duncan who reached on an error.
Sophomore Jeremy Lhotka's two-run single in the fifth pulled the Bears to within 8-3, but Becker scored three unearned runs in the sixth with Testa stealing home before Barrera added another RBI single for an 11-3 lead.
Becker added single runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth to close the scoring. Bedell's 100th career hit came on an RBI single in the top of the eighth.
Junior Michael Iacovelli (Uxbridge, Mass.) inproved to 2-0 on the year after pitching seven innings allowing eight hits and three runs, two earned while walking two and fanning three to pick up the win.
Testa, Bedell and senior T.J. Sempkowski (Oceanport, N.J.) each had two hits in the win for Becker, which improves to 8-4 on the season.
Sophomore Dan Finn (1-1) pitched the first five inning s and was charged with six earned runs and took the loss for the Bears.
Freshman Alex Cordes had two hits, the first multiple hit game of his career for Coast Guard, which drops to 6-7 overall.
Becker returns to action on Sunday, March26th with a New England Collegiate Conference doubleheader against Elms College at 10:00 a.m. The games will be played at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.