Defending NCAA Champion Trinity Opens Post-Season Against Wesleyan Friday
Bantam Junior OF Sullivan Takes NESCAC Player Of The Week
Hartford, Conn., May 5 -- The Trinity College Bantam baseball team, which reached unprecedented heights last spring with a 44-game winning streak to start the season and the College's first NCAA Championship title in any sport, begins the 2009 post-season this weekend against state rival Wesleyan in the opening round of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championship Tournament on Friday, May 8 at 3 p.m. at Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Mass. The tournament is a four-team, double-elimination format from May 8 to May 10, hosted by NESCAC West Division winner Williams College with the winner earning the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament. Trinity, which won the 2003 league crown and last year's title, breezed through the NESCAC East Division at 12-0 for the second straight season and finished the regular season with a 26-5 mark. Williams won the NESCAC West at 9-3 and finished 24-10 overall, while Wesleyan was 7-5 in the division and 19-14 overall and NESCAC East wild card entry Tufts was 7-5 in the division and 17-17 overall. Williams hosts Tufts in the other first round game Friday at 3 p.m. and the first round losers will play an elimination game on Saturday, May 9 at Wahconah Park. The remaining games in the tournament will be played at Williams.
The Bantams, coached by Bill Decker (19th season, 448-192), are currently ranked No. 3 in the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association rankings and No. 6 in the nation, according to the National Collegiate Baseball writers/D3Baseball.com National Poll. Trinity opened the season with an 8-2 record during its spring break trip to the Orlando area for the Russmatt Central Florida Invitational and opened its Northern schedule with 14 wins in 15 games. The Bantams are 4-2 in their last six games, including a doubleheader split against the Wesleyan Cardinals on the last day of the regular season on May 3 in Hartford.
Against Wesleyan, Trinity junior RHP Jeremiah Bayer (Greenfield, Mass.) allowed four hits and struck out 10 over 7.1 innings on the mound in a 9-5 win in the first game, while the Cardinals held on for a 7-6 triumph in the nightcap. Bantam junior OF Matthew Sullivan (North Reading, Mass.) paced the offense in the win with two hits in four at-bats, while classmate Jack Abbott (Longmeadow, Mass.) went 3-for-4, and Sullivan tripled and a scored a run in the second game. Sullivan was selected as the NESCAC Player of the Week for his outstanding performance in those games combined with a 5-for-5 effort in a 13-3 win at Coast Guard last Monday that also included a double, a homer, five runs, and five RBI.
Trinity leads the NESCAC in batting at .359 and pitching with a 2.90 ERA and ranks second nationally in hits allowed per nine innings (7.39), fifth in slugging percentage (.556), 10th in home runs (1.36 per game), , and 13th in scoring (10.1 runs per game). Bayer tops the league and the nation in ERA with a 0.56 mark, while sophomore RHP Andrew Janiga (Ellington, Conn.) is third in NESCAC at 3.09, and freshman southpaw James Ramsey (Belmont, Mass.) ranks seventh at 3.24. Bayer, who also leads the NESCAC in strikeouts with 72 against just nine walks(13th in nation) in 64.2 innings, is 9-0 (12th in nation) with a save, while Janiga is 5-2 in 46.2 innings with 29 strikeouts, and Ramsey is 5-1 in 41.2 innings with 37 K's. Bayer pitched a seven-inning no-hitter against Amherst two weeks ago.
At the plate, senior co-captain C Sean Killeen (Greenfield, Mass.) leads the way with a .459 batting average (3rd in NESCAC, 8th in nation), while junior 1B Kent Graham (Longmeadow, Mass.) is hitting .429 (9th in NESCAC), Abbott and Sullivan are each batting .395, and senior co-captain 2B Ryan Piacentini (Portland, Maine) is batting .375. Killeen also has 46 runs (1st in NESCAC, 9th in nation), 43 RBI (2nd in NESCAC), 13 doubles (4th in NESCAC), nine home runs (2nd in NESCAC), and 94 total bases (1st in NESCAC), while Graham boasts 37 runs scored to go with 44 RBI (2nd in NESCAC, 25th in nation), 11 doubles, 10 homers (1st in NESCAC, 16th in nation), and 89 total bases (2nd in NESCAC), and Piacentini adds 41 RBI (4th in NESCAC) and six home runs (3rd in NESCAC). Graham has been NESCAC Player of the Week once this spring and Bayer has earned NESCAC Pitcher of the Week once.
Wesleyan, coached by Mark Woodworth (8th Season), used a 9-6 win at Middlebury on Saturday combined with two Amherst losses over the weekend to qualify for tournament for the first time since 2005. Wesleyan enters the weekend at 4-1 over its last five games, but the Bantams eliminated them from the league tourney in 2002 and again in 2005. Drew Dominguez leads the Cardinal offense with a .404 batting average, five homers, and 34 RBI, while freshman Brett Yarusi, who saved the Wesleyan win over Trinity on Sunday, is 3-3 with a 3.30 ERA on the mound.
