Tommie Baseball made four hits go a long way Friday afternoon in its 8-4 opening victory over Scranton at the NCAA regional tournament in Collegeville, Minn.

 

St. Thomas (30-7) recorded its third comeback win in its last four games, all on the SJU field. It advances to a winners' bracket game Saturday at 2:30 p.m., and will face the loser of Friday's final game between York and Pacific.

 

Friday, the Tommies rallied from a 4-2 deficit in the home half of seventh inning, sending 11 to the plate with a six-run surge. Kyle Halverson's bases-loaded double -- the lone hit of the inning -- snapped a 4-4 tie, and a wild pitch added the final run.

 

Redshirt sophomore T.J. Constertina took the pitching win with three innings of scoreless relief. Constertina (four) and starter Graham Laubscher (eight) combined to strike out 12. Laubscher allowed four runs (two earned) in six innings. The two stranded nine Scranton baserunners.

 

The Purple capitalized on 11 walks and two hit batters on the day against five Scranton pitchers. They scored single runs in the second and third innings with just one hit, Josh Thorp's RBI single. 

 

In the sixth inning they used three walks, a hit batter, and an infield error to tie the game 4-4, and still had no outs. After a pop out, Halverson's three-run double put them ahead to stay. After a walk, a strike out and a double steal, a two-out wild pitch plated the eighth run.

 

The Tommie defense, ranked in the top five in D-III fielding percentage, had an uncharacteristic five infield errors over the first five innings. Some of those contributed to Scranton's four-run fifth inning that let it take a 4-2 lead.

 

St. Thomas is proving to be a tough late-inning foe. Coach Chris Olean's team has won 16 of its last 18 games. In those 16 wins, the Purple have outscored opponents in the seventh, eighth and nine innings by a 54-15 margin.