Frostburg, Md. – In the second round of the Capital Athletic Conference Baseball Championship Tournament Friday afternoon, the St. Mary's College of Maryland baseball team seemed poised to head into third round action undefeated but the third-seeded Seahawks lost a 5-0 lead and No. 2 seed Frostburg State University rallied for a 6-5 victory.
The loss has St. Mary's (19-15) facing top-seeded Salisbury University (20-10) Saturday morning at 9:00 am in the third round. Both the Seahawks and Salisbury enter tomorrow's action with 1-1 tournament records as the Sea Gulls dropped an 11-3 decision to No. 4 seed University of Mary Washington on Friday as well. Salisbury will serve as the host site for the remainder of the double-elimination CAC Tournament as the highest remaining seed.
First-year LHP Sam Coe (Bethesda, Md./Walter Johnson), who was the Seahawks' second reliever of the game, took the loss on the mound after Coe (1-1) gave up the go-ahead run in the eighth in facing just one batter in the inning.
Frostburg State (20-10) scored runs in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings to pull out the 6-5 come-from-behind victory. The Bobcats cut the lead to 5-1 in the sixth as junior Adam Summerfelt (Gambrills, Md./Spalding) connected on a one-out, RBI single to left center.
Frostburg closed the gap to one run in the seventh as senior Matt Greene (Westminster, Md./South Carroll) slammed a three-run homer over the leftfield fence off of senior RHP Mikel Iraola (Kensington, Md./DeMatha).
In the eighth, FSU's junior Shane Boyd (Gaithersburg, Md./Damascus) doubled down the right field line, allowing Summerfelt to come home and tie the game at 5-5. Boyd then scored the game-winning run on senior Daniel Heatwole's (Dayton, Va./Turner Ashby) sacrifice fly to right field.
Senior RHP Britton Quayle (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) recorded his fourth save of the season as Quayle struck the first two Seahawk batters of the ninth before yielding a single to senior first baseman Ian Simpson-Shelton (Upper Marlboro, Md./DeMatha). Quayle then pitched a fly out ball to sophomore catcher Stefano Muscatelli (Warwick, R.I./Toll Gate) for the final out.
Simpson-Shelton and seniors Matt Baden (Huntingtown, Md./Huntingtown), Mark Dattilio (Hagerstown, Md./North Hagerstown) and Joey Kavanagh (Huntingtown, Md./Huntingtown) each connected on two hits to lead the Seahawk offense at the plate.
St. Mary's garnered a 1-0 lead in the third as Baden scored on a wild pitch after singling up the middle and advancing to third on Dattilio's single to right field.
Muscatelli had a bases loaded ground out to second to allow Kavanagh to score the first run of the fourth inning and increase the Seahawks' lead to 2-0. It was a 3-0 game following senior centerfielder Bobby Corton's (Owings Mills, Md./Calvert Hall) ground out to first to get junior designated hitter Nick Urso (Newtown, Conn./Newtown) home.
The Seahawks added two more in the fifth behind Kavanagh and Urso's two-out RBI singles.