Baseball Falls in Season Opener at Kean
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mitchell | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 1 |
|
Kean | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | X | 5 | 8 | 1 |
UNION, N.J. – The Mitchell College baseball team dropped their season opening game to Kean University on Friday afternoon, falling by a final of 5-2 against the Cougars in non-conference action at the Jim Hynes '63 Baseball Stadium.
Sophomore Chas Terni Jr. (Montville, Conn.) finished 2-4 with the eighth home run of his Mitchell career, driving in one and scoring a run. Junior Thai-ler Sestokas (Danbury, Conn.) also went deep for the Mariners, sending a pitch over the left field fence in the top of the seventh inning for his first collegiate homer. Juniors Adam Vartanian (Cumberland, R.I.) and Kenneth Miller Jr. (New London, Conn.) picked up two hits apiece for Mariners.
After the Mariners left two runners on in the top of the first, Kean threatened in the bottom half of the frame when Justin Teixeira led off the inning with a triple off senior Chris Gibbs (New Britain, Conn.). That was as far as Teixeira would make it, however, as Gibbs sat down the next three batters in order to end the inning.
An RBI by Dominic Masino knotted the score in the bottom of the fifth, then the Cougars broke the game open the next inning when CJ Tomalavage belted a three-run blast to left-center field, pushing the home team up 4-1. A Sestokas homer in the seventh trimmed the Mitchel deficit to two, but a sacrifice fly off the bat of Tyler Stone gave Kean an insurance run they would not need, as the Cougars improved to 3-0.
Chris Gibbs (0-1) absorbed the loss for Mitchell, tossing five and one third innings, allowing four runs. Rob Salvatore (1-0) tossed six innings of one-run ball to earn his first win of the season.
The Mariners (0-1, 0-0 GNAC) will look for revenge on Kean University (3-0, 0-0 NJAC) on Saturday, February 22, when they play the second game of their weekend series. First pitch in scheduled for 11:30 am.
