Baseball Takes Series Opener From Becker

NEW LONDON, Conn. – The Mitchell College baseball team got back on the winning track with a 12-3 victory over Becker College on Thursday afternoon in New England Collegiate Conference action at Alumni Field.

Mitchell finished with 14 hits in the contest and got three apiece from Kyle Hartenstein and Francis Prettitore. Garet Griffin also chipped in with two hits, including a two-run homer in the fourth to help break the game open.

Reliever Marcus Guadarrama fanned five batters over 5.0 innings and allowed one run on three hits to earn the win. Starter Clayton Shaw struck out five in 3.0 innings of work and yielded two runs on five hits.

Becker got out of the gates quickly and put two runs on the board in the top of the first. Daniel Diaz led off with a single and Chris Testa walked to set the table for Niko Bedell, who drove in the first run with a single through the right side of the infield. Vaibhav Desai later singled home another run to make it 2-0, although the Hawks stranded two runners on base as Shaw wriggled out of further trouble.

Mitchell answered back immediately, taking the lead with three runs in the home half of the first. Tristan Hurley reached base on a hit by pitch and promptly scored on a triple to right field by Hartenstein. Jack Finnegan then tied the game with a single to right, and he later scored the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly by Prettitore.

The Mariners pushed across five runs in the third inning to extend the lead. Dan Frattaroli, Markus Melendez and Hartenstein all knocked in runs in the frame as Mitchell went up 8-2.

Griffin's two-run homer bumped the lead to 10-2 in the fourth. With two outs and a runner on first, he teed off on a pitch and drove it over the fence in left for his first home run of the season.

Chandler Whitney plated the first of two Mitchell runs in the sixth with a single through the right side. Griffin tacked on the final run of the day for the Mariners with a sacrifice fly.

Becker picked up a run off Guadarrama in the seventh on a single to center by Testa, who went 2-for-3 on the day. After a hitless eighth, the Hawks put two runners on in the ninth but failed to capitalize off reliever Eddie Santiago.

Bedell finished with three hits to lead the Becker offense. Starting pitcher Tyler Wagar gave up 10 runs (seven earned) on 10 hits and struck out two in 3.2 innings.

The game was the first of three between the Mariners (19-4 overall, 9-1 NECC) and Hawks (13-13 overall, 7-5 NECC) in a series that was originally slated for April 2-3 but postponed due to weather. Becker will host the final two games on Thursday, April 21 in Leicester, Mass.

Mitchell will next play a doubleheader at Elms College on Saturday, April 16 at 1 p.m. Becker returns to action with a single game at Johnson & Wales University on Friday, April 15 at 3:30 p.m.