SUNY Maritime wasted no time in their Skyline Conference Tournament match up against St. Joseph’s this morning. The Privateers jumped on St. Joe’s pitching from the start and never relinquished the lead.
The first run of the game came across on a double down the left field line by Steve Semler, who won yesterday’s fifteen inning marathon with a walk-off sacrifice fly. Thirteen Maritime batters came to the plate in the first, and besides Semler runs were driven in by Brian McLaughlin, Phill Russo, Connor Alwan, Aaron Schiavoni, Antonio Diaz and Matt Costleigh. With an opening frame like that it felt like St. Joe’s was done for before they even had a chance to bat.
Head coach Charlie Barbieri said after the game: “We were trying to maybe shoot for two or three runs, so to get eight like that was huge for us. It just allowed us to breathe.”
In the third Chris Deddo extended the lead to 10-0 on a two run shot over the fence in left field. Then in the fifth singles from Semler and Alwan each plated a run, then three more scored on a bases-loaded walk and an error on what could have been an inning-ending double play.
So while his offense was hammering the baseball Maritime starter, Travis Bruinsma found himself in a couple jams, but was able to consistently work out of trouble. Bruinsma earned a program record-setting eighth win over six innings of work while surrendering two earned runs on seven hits and three walks.
St. Joe’s got on the board in the fifth with an RBI ground out by Matthew Burnett. Left fielder Lou Doria followed up an RBI single, and then came around to score himself on a passed ball.
Despite being down 15-3 at this point the Golden Eagles refused to quit. They scored three more runs in the seventh on singles by Dylan Piscitelli and Anthony Raucci.
However, Maritime answered with four runs of their own in the eighth to make it a 19-6 game. Semler and Russo drove in two each on doubles.
St. Joe’s tried to claw their way back into the game in bottom of the eighth. Paul Britt absolutely crushed a two-run home run to left to make an eleven run game, but again Maritime came back with two of their own in the ninth. These came on a single by Deddo, his fourth hit and the team’s 20th and 21st runs.
Deddo, Costleigh, Semler and Russo led the way with four hits each, accounting for 16 of the team’s 22. Alwan and Schiavoni were the only other Privateers with multiple hits, tallying two each.
And as for the Golden Eagles Burnett, Doria, Piscitelli and Tyler Crafa had two hits each.
“It’s nice coming off a fifteen-inning game yesterday to only have to play one game today…” Said Barbieri, “This program has never been here in our modern history… and we’re proud of what we’re doing and we’re just going to try to finish the job tomorrow.”
Maritime will play for the Skyline Championship tomorrow at noon against Mount St. Mary’s after they eliminated St. Joseph’s with an 8-5 victory.
