Newbury Tops Baseball in Rubber Match

WATERTOWN, Mass. - The Mitchell College baseball team dropped the rubber match of its weekend series against Newbury College on Sunday by a 4-1 final at Victory Field.

Reliever Craig Barnett retired all nine batters he faced in the later innings to earn his first career save as Newbury took the season series from Mitchell for the first time ever. Starting pitcher Cameron D'Agostino earned his second win of the season and allowed just one unearned run on three hits while striking out three over 6.0 innings.

D'Agostino benefitted from solid defense behind him all afternoon. With one on and one out in the second, catcher David Dubay picked off a runner at first base, and D'Agostino got senior Will Charkowsky to hit a slow chopper back to the mound for the final out of the frame.

The Nighthawks finally broke the scoreless stalemate and got to Mitchell starter Mike Tandy the second time through the order. Ian Hruniak and Dubay opened the home half of the third with back-to-back base hits to left-center. Ryan Zahornasky sent a 1-1 pitch back up the middle to bring Hruniak around from second with the first run of the game, and then Steven Broy lifted a high fly ball to center field to plate Dubay for the second Newbury run.

Mitchell threatened to score a half inning later when senior Marc Dorsi reached on a two-base outfield error and then moved to third on a ground out by senior Kenneth Olszewski. But a slow roller to third off the bat of junior Evan Peck was fielded by Broy, and he gunned down Dorsi at the plate to keep the Mariners off the scoreboard.

The Mariners finally put up a run an inning later as they took advantage of a Nighthawk miscue. Junior Peter McTernan reached on an error before moving up 90 feet on a wild pitch. Two batters later, junior Rafael Garcia laced a base hit into center field to cut the Nighthawk lead in half at 2-1.

It was as close as the Mariners would get. An inning later, the Nighthawks added two insurance runs thanks in large part to the bottom of the order. After Dwyer and Perillo opened the bottom of the sixth with back-to-back singles, Rhone lined a one-out single into right field to plate Dwyer while Perillo went from first to third on the play. C.J. Ingraham then pushed a bunt to the right side of the infield to drive in Perillo and make it a 4-1 game.

A three-run cushion was plenty for Barnett, who came on to finish out the game in the top of the seventh and preserved D'Agostino's second victory of the season.

Newbury improved to 7-6 overall and 2-1 in conference action while Mitchell dropped to 3-3 in NECC play and 6-6-1 overall.

Mitchell will next play at Johnson & Wales University on Thursday, March 27 at 4 p.m.