Final: NYIT 9, Franklin Pierce 3
WP: Joseph Murphy
S: Zach WhiteCumbo: 4-for-5, 4 R
Bears advance to the NCAA East Regional tomorrow pic.twitter.com/IkI950LQfa
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 17, 2019
Early wake-up call? No problem.
The NYIT Bears cruised past perennial Division-II powerhouse, Franklin Pierce, by the score of 9-3 to advance to the Division-II NCAA East Regional Championship Game tomorrow at noon. The game today began at 9am, but it didn’t matter one bit to the Bears offense who put up a three-spot in the first inning thanks to RBI hits by E.J. Cumbo, Kieran Dowd and Matt Malone.
“We actually do pretty well in the early morning games,” said Jake Lebel, the power-hitting first baseman for the Bears. “We’ve had three or four of them and we’ve hit really well in those games. We had a lot of confidence in our ability to swing the bats today,” he added.
Starting pitcher Joseph Murphy was extremely effective and even dominant in the early going. He worked quickly and threw strikes against the dangerous Ravens lineup.
In the third inning, the Bears increased their lead to 4-0 on a fielding error by the shortstop.
They broke it wide open in the fifth inning on a two-run single by Ryan Kuskowski to score Cumbo and John LaRocca.
Cumbo has been outstanding and is the early favorite for MVP of the Tournament. He went 4-for-5 with four runs scored and an RBI in this game. He is 8-for-11 with 5 RBI over the past two games.
Murphy ran into a bit of trouble in the sixth inning, allowing runs on a wild pitch, sac fly and a bloop RBI single to make it 6-3. His work was done after that, having thrown 125 pitches but scattering seven hits and four walks with seven strikeouts.
The Bears put any hopes that the Ravens had about a comeback to bed with two runs in the seventh inning on a ‘little league home run’ by Cumbo in which he doubled and scored on two errors. Lebel followed with a Major League home run off the Swirbul library in left field.
Zach White came on in relief. He fired three shutout innings with three strikeouts to record the save.
The Bears, once left for dead after getting eliminated last week in the ECC Tournament are now very much alive. They now have a record of 34-14 and are in position to reach the NCAA Super Regionals next week.
