Baseball Falls to Keystone in NCAA Opener

AUBURN, N.Y. – Fourth-seeded Mitchell College opened the 2021 NCAA Division III Baseball Championship with a 7-1 loss to third-seeded Keystone College at the Auburn (N.Y.) Regional on Thursday night at Falcon Park.

The Giants (22-4 overall) snapped a 1-1 tie with three runs in the seventh inning and tacked on three more in the eighth. Starter Jared Rowley limited the Mariners (25-8 overall) to one run on six hits and fanned 11 over 8.0 innings.

Hunter Yaworski paced Mitchell with two hits while Anthony Diaz plated the lone run with a double. Starting pitcher Roland Thivierge yielded five runs on nine hits and tied a career high with 11 strikeouts.

Runs were hard to come by early as both Rowley and Thivierge were strong the first time through the lineup. The Mariners broke the stalemate in the fourth on doubles by Yaworski and Diaz, but the 1-0 lead was quickly erased on a two-out RBI single by Larry Sims in the home half.

Mitchell put runners on second and third with one out in the sixth but failed to capitalize. In the seventh, Dougie DelaCruz stepped to the plate with two on and two outs and hit a deep fly ball to left that was caught on the warning track.

Thivierge struck out the first two Keystone batters in the seventh before things took a turn. After a walk and a single put runners at second and third, a wild pitch allowed the go-ahead run to score. Vince Montone then added an RBI single and Adam Kelly capped things off with a triple to make it 4-1.  

RJ Goldsbury and Sims hit back-to-back homers in the eighth to extend the Keystone lead.

Mitchell will next face sixth-seeded Merchant Marine Academy in a "Battle of the Mariners" on Friday at 1 p.m. In the tournament's opening game, Merchant Marine Academy upset top-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University by a 2-1 final.