American International College and Adelphi split a double header this afternoon at William J. Bonomo Field pic.twitter.com/Y8yhXLprIM
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 21, 2018
The Adelphi Panthers split a doubleheader Saturday afternoon with fellow Northeast-10 Conference foe American International College, losing the first game 8-4, before securing a 9-6 win in the second contest.
Game one was all Yellow Jackets, with AIC jumping out to a big lead thanks to a pair of 3-run bursts in the third and fourth inning. Andrew Ciacciarelli got things started for AIC with bloop single RBI to start off a well-rounded hitting game for his team. All together, seven different players had at least one RBI for the visitors.
The Yellow Jackets chased Adelphi’s junior RHP starter Ed Baram early, forcing him to exit in the fourth inning having thrown just 3 innings with 3 strikeouts and five earned runs. Some poor fielding by Adelphi did not help his case as the team picked up all three of their errors with Baram on the mound.
With sufficient run support, American’s junior RHP Joe Pepe earned the win, going 7 strong innings, striking out five and allowing just one earned run. He improved his record to 4-3.
Adelphi’s offense caught fire in the fifth inning when they scored four runs to close the gap to 6-4 with the help of Lucas Terwilliger, Tyler Warshefskie and a timely error.
Terwilliger and Warshefskie each went 2-of-4 with an RBI in the contest, but it wasn’t enough as Pepe found his form again in the sixth and AIC shut the Panther offense down thereafter.
The second game gave fans another offensive battle and a more back and forth showdown.
Adelphi’s bats really came to play in the latter game after one having just one scoring inning in the first matchup. Leadoff man Steven Withers put in work, going 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Lawrence Cicileo gave onlookers a laugh with his choice of the Yodeling Walmart Kid EDM Remix as his walkout song, and he had a strong day at the plate as well, hitting 2-for-5 with 3 RBIs himself.
“They did a great job jumping up and getting ahead early.” American International Head Coach Nick Callini said. “They got a couple more hits and we left a couple of plays on the field.”
Indeed the Panthers offense had it going all game, putting up 9 runs on a whopping 18 hits from 13 different batters. Their patience at the plate was on display as well, with many at-bats going to 10 pitches plus and only three batters striking out in the game.
Though the Panther bats were the story of the game, Brendan LaVallee did his best to keep AIC in the game, going 2-for-5 with 3 RBIs and reaching on an error that scored a fourth run.
The Panthers used five different pitchers in the second game with none going longer than 3 innings, but junior RHP Kieran McLaughlin ended up getting the winning decision after facing only one hitter. HIs record improves to 3-0 on the season. Senior LHP David Butler came on in the eighth and calmly retired six straight batters, including 3 strikeouts, to grab his third save of the season.
As each team looks towards tomorrow’s series finale, American International is now 15-21, (6-12 NE10) while Adelphi is 18-14-1 (9-8 NE10).
