AUBURNDALE, Fla. – Junior lefthander John Gegetskas (Sport Sciences/Windsor, Conn.) fanned a dozen hitters and outfielder Anthony Crowley (Bellingham, Mass.) hit a towering home run to lead Westfield State to a 3-1 win over St. Norbert (Wisc.) College and earn a doubleheader split on Saturday at Lake Myrtle Park.
St. Norbert claimed a 9-5 win over the Owls in game one, as Owls starter Nate Marshall (Glbert School/Winsted, Conn.) struggled with his control and did not make it out of the first inning after issuing four walks to open the game. Sean Grant and Andrew Petrik each delivered two-run singles to stake the Green Knights to a 6-0 lead after the top of the first.
Westfield answered with a pair in the bottom half of the inning, with Alex Lafayette (Ludlow, Mass.) poking an rbi triple into the right field corner.
St Norbert added two runs in the second and one in the third. Westfield scored three times in the third inning with a 2-run single from Nate Barnes (Westfield, Mass.) the big blow, but the Owls would get no closer. Westfield put runners on base in each of the last four innings, and stranded a total of nine runners in the game. Marshall (0-2) took the loss for the owls, while St. Norbert ace Jason Malkowski worked 6 innings while scattering 10 hits to earn the win.
In the nightcap, Colin Dunn tripled and scored on John Lippincott's ground out to lead off the first for Westfield.
Gegetskas struck out the first two hitters on three pitches each, then had a two-strike count on Tyler Banovich and looked to have him struck out looking with a close pitch that was called a ball. Banovich eventually walked, stole second, and scored on Robbie Dombrowski's single, but that was the only run the Owls' ace would yield.
Gegetskas needed just 89 pitches and allowed just three hits and two walks while striking out 12.
Crowley's sky-high blast to left gave Westfield a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning, and the Owls added an insurance run after Brett Dooley (Gunnery/Cohasset, Mass.) reached on an error and scored on Jimmy Valenti's base hit.
Gegetskas (1-1) fanned the side in the fifth, one in the sixth, and the final two hitters in the seventh to secure the win.
Westfield State improves to 2-3-1 on the season with the split. St. Norbert, which finished 30-13 a year ago and qualified for the NCAA Tournament, starts their 2018 season 1-1.
Westfield will play nine games in central Florida this week as part of the RussMatt Tournament. The Owls will be back in action tomorrow morning at Winter Haven, facing St. Joseph's College of Maine at the former Red Sox Spring Training complex.