Baseball Slugs Past Coast Guard
NEW LONDON, Conn. – The Mitchell College baseball team slugged to a 16-2 victory over Coast Guard Academy on Tuesday afternoon in non-conference action at Alumni Field.
The Mariners (8-5 overall) scored runs in every inning and finished with 16 hits in the contest. Garet Griffin went 3-for-3 with a double, home run and five RBI to lead the charge. Tristan Hurley and Markus Melendez also finished with three hits apiece.
Mitchell starter Bryton Ferris allowed one unearned run on three hits in 6.0 innings of work. He struck out five and walked one to improve to 3-0 on the season.
Jeremy Lhotka had two hits and knocked in a run to pace Coast Guard (6-6 overall). Starting pitcher Ben Webster took the loss, allowing seven runs (five earned) on four hits over 3.0 innings.
Two walks and a pair of errors yielded the game's first run in the bottom of the first, and Griffin tacked on another run with a sacrifice fly for an early 2-0 Mitchell lead. The Mariners added a run in the second on a Hurley double and two more in the third on a two-run single up the middle by Jack Finnegan.
Griffin broke the game open with a two-out, three-run homer in the fourth inning to extend the lead to 8-0. The long ball was his second of the spring.
Four Mariners plated runs in the fifth, with Kyle Hartenstein and Francis Prettitore igniting the rally with back-to-back RBI singles. A double by Griffin scored another run, and Melendez followed with a two-run single to center to make it 13-0.
The Bears put up a run in the sixth on a sacrifice fly by Lhotka. However, Mitchell got the run back in the home half courtesy of a ground out by Prettitore. A single by Hartenstein in the seventh and a double by Brody Adams in the eighth gave the Mariners their final runs of the day.
Mitchell relievers Jakari Pellegrini, Justin Lawson and Brian Stanczuk all logged an inning of work to close out the game. All three recorded a pair of strikeouts to give the Mitchell staff 11 on the day.
Mitchell will next play at Trinity College on Saturday, March 25 at noon. Coast Guard returns to action at home against Becker College on Thursday, March 23 at 4 p.m.