Box Score
Box Score
GRAND CHUTE, Wis. - Senior
Jeff Frost (Freehold, NJ) won the battle of pitching aces with a complete game performance as Keystone College, PA defeated Western New England 2-1 in the first-round of the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship Friday night (May 27) at Fox Cities Stadium.
The Giants (37-10) advance to play Buena Vista, IA (33-16) at 8:45 p.m. Saturday (May 28) in a winner's bracket game. The Golden Bears (42-10) will meet Wisconsin-Whitewater (36-12) at 2:15 p.m. in an elimination contest.
Frost allowed 11 hits, but struck out nine and didn't walk a batter in raising his record to 9-4. The Golden Bears had runners on base in every inning except the third and seventh innings as Frost got key outs in several innings. KC also turned two big double plays in the game.
Senior
Matt Rogers (Portsmouth, RI) was brilliant in defeat allowing only eight hits in seven-and-two-thirds innings. He walked one and had a career high 10 strikeouts in falling to 11-2.
WNE took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when sophomore second baseman
Mike Rubino (Northford, CT) lead-off with a single to left. Senior catcher
Jason Leclerc (Chicopee, MA) followed with a single down the right field line moving Rubino to third. With one out, junior designated hitter
Mike Taylor (Andover, MA) singled to left to knock in Rubino. Frost got out of the jam when his team turned its first double play.
The Golden Bears left two runners on base in the fifth with one out, and had runners on first and second with two outs in the sixth, but couldn't score.
Rogers gave up just three hits through five innings before the Giants broke through with both of their runs in the sixth. Junior center-fielder
Brian Del Rosso (Stewartsville, NJ) led-off the inning with a double down the left field line and scored on a single by junior second baseman
Esteban Meletiche (Philadelphia, PA).
Junior right-fielder
Andrew Siano (Springfield, MA) moved Meletiche to second with a sacrifice and senior left-fielder
Roberto Santana (Orlando, FL) delivered a triple to left center to drive in what proved to be the winning run.
Del Rosso, who batted ninth, went 3-for-3 while Meletiche contributed two hits.
Taylor had a strong 3-for-4 contest while senor first baseman
Tony Trubia (Tolland, CT) contributed a single and double.
Leclerc sparkled defensively by throwing out three runners, which was one shy of the championship record.
"Going into this year a big thing for us was working with our pitching staff on holding guys on," said Leclerc. "One of the best guys to do it is
Matt Rogers. He does a great job throwing over three or four times, making sure they're off balance and giving me the opportunity to throw them out. That's the biggest thing – they got a good jump and I still had a chance to throw them out."
Despite the loss, WNE coach
Matt LaBranche says his team remains upbeat.
"I was really impressed with our kids' composure. We'd been loose and confident going through the regional and that's what we talked about, being here was to try to carry that to this level and to feel like we belonged on the field and had a good chance to win, which we did. We just couldn't find a way to get a couple more runs," LaBranche remarked.
"We knew it (shutting down the Keystone running game) was important coming in. We liked the match-up tonight. We thought we had the right guy on the mound against this team, both in terms of his stuff and his ability to hold runners."
The veteran Golden Bears' coach also noted that his squad has been in this situation before and done well.
"This group has done (come back through the loser's bracket) that a lot. We had a good ride through the regional tournament, but the last couple years in our conference play we've had to come out of the loser's bracket. It's been a resilient bunch. I'll expect us to come out and compete tomorrow the way we did tonight," stated LaBranche.
Pat Coleman of d3baseball. com contributed to this article.
