The New England College baseball team visited Thomas College Sunday, April 22nd for more North Atlantic Conference play. The Pilgrims would earn a split of the games and therefore win the season series three wins to one. With the split the Pilgrims would move their record to 21-10 (10-6 NAC) and Thomas College would improve to 5-25 (2-12 NAC).
Despite their record being twenty games under .500, Thomas College would prove to be the better team in all aspects during the first game of the day. Thomas starting pitcher Matt Rutherford would pitch a complete game and only allow two hits. Rutherford would strike out nine Pilgrims and despite walking five batters, would only allow one run all game.
Thomas would take the lead in the bottom of the first inning on an Alex Curtis RBI double, and extend their lead to 2-0 on another Curtis double in the third inning. Leading 3-0 in the bottom of the fourth, Thomas would add two more runs on a pair of Pilgrims errors that would push the score to 5-0. The lone Pilgrims run would come in the top of the fifth when Ryan Swarts recorded a RBI after being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
After the 5-1 loss, the Pilgrims were looking to bounce back in the second game of the day, though once again Thomas struck early and took another lead. Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the second inning Thomas would score three times and take a 3-1 lead. That is when freshman Shaun Cormier would enter the game and shut down the Thomas offense for the remainder of the day. Cormier would earn his first win of the season by pitching five and a third scoreless innings while striking out three batters.
The Pilgrims would take advantage of the wildness from the Thomas pitchers in the top of the third when they drew five walks and had a batter hit by a pitch. In total, the Pilgrims would score four times and would see Connor Morin, Manny Alejandro, Evan Delaney and Justin Carey all record RBI’s. Morin would add a RBI single in the top of the fourth and in the fifth inning, Delaney would come around to score on an error to make the final score 7-3.
The Pilgrims will return to action on Monday afternoon when they visit WPI for a non-conference game. They will return to conference play on Thursday afternoon when they play at Castleton University who currently sits in first place of the NAC.
