Trinity Begins NCAA Baseball Title Defense Against Westfield State Wednesday
Hartford, Conn., May 12, 2009 - The defending NCAA Champion Trinity College baseball team, which boasts a 29-5 record and won its second consecutive New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championship Tournament this weekend, has earned its eighth bid to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament in the last 12 years (third in a row). The Bantams have been awarded the No. 3 seed in the NCAA Division III New England Regional Tournament, hosted by Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Conn., and will play the No. 6-seeded Westfield State College Owls (23-15) in its first game of the eight-team, double elimination tournament on Wed., May 13 at 4:30 p.m. The winner of the tournament advances to the NCAA Division III National Championship Tourney the following weekend in Appleton, Wisc. The Bantams reached unprecedented heights last spring with a 44-game winning streak to start the season en route to winning the College's first NCAA Championship title in any sport. The New England Region features three of the top six teams in the D3Baseball.com National Poll. Eastern Connecticut (35-6) earned the top seed, followed by Southern Maine (35-7), Trinity, Worcester Tech (28-11), Suffolk (30-9), Westfield State, Husson (31-12), and Babson (22-18). General admission tickets are $5 per day, $3 for students with a valid ID and senior citizens, and children under the age of 5 will be admitted free.
The Bantams, coached by Bill Decker (19th season, 451-192), won the NESCAC East Division with a 12-0 mark and downed Wesleyan, 13-6, Williams, 8-3, and, Tufts, 7-3, over the weekend to win the league's automatic bid to the NCAA field. The Bantams competed in the NCAA Division III New England Regional Tournament in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2005, and last spring and won the tournament in 2005 and 2008 to advance to the NCAA Division III World Series. Trinity played in the New York Regionals in 2003 and 2006, winning that tournament in 2003 to earn its first trip to Appleton.
In the NESCAC Tournament against Wesleyan, junior 1B Kent Graham (Longmeadow, Mass.) went 3-for-5 with four runs and five RBI and freshman lefty starter James Ramsey (Belmont, Mass.) earned the win on the mound with 5.2 innings of work. Senior RHP Jeremiah Bayer (Greenfield, Mass.) pitched a complete game and junior Matt Sullivan (North Reading, Mass.) hit a double and a three-run homer in the win at Williams. Bayer spread out five hits and five walks throughout the game but did not allow an earned run to improve to 10-0 overall and 19-0 in his career. Senior co-captain C Sean Killeen (Greenfield, Mass.), Sullivan, junior OF James Wood (Windham, N.H.), and freshman DH Kevin Mortimer (Spencer, Mass.) collected two hits apiece for the Bantams. In the finals against Tufts, Killeen hit two homeruns, including an eighth inning, game-winning grand slam, while sophomore RHP Andrew Janiga (Ellington, Conn.) allowed five hits and one earned run in five innings and junior righty reliever Conor O'Sullivan-Pierce (Cambridge, Mass.) pitched four strong innings with two hits allowed and three K's. Killeen, who had homered to tie the score in the seventh inning, tied the NESCAC Tournament records for RBI (5) and homeruns in a game.
Bayer was selected as the NESCAC Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season, while Killeen was named the NESCAC Player of the Week. Killeen batted .636 (7-for-11) while posting a .733 on-base percentage and a 1.364 slugging mark. He had two doubles, two home runs, four walks, and seven RBI, and set or tied four Bantam career records in the final two tournament games, including three on Sunday. Killeen now has the program career records for at-bats (538), runs (176), hits (213), and is tied for first all-time in RBI (155). He is the all-time leader in triples (10) and walks (93)
Trinity leads the NESCAC in batting at .357 and pitching with a 2.85 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 0.49 mark, while Janiga is second in NESCAC at 2.96. Bayer, who also leads the NESCAC in strikeouts with 78 against just 14 walks(13th in nation) in 73.2 innings, is 10-0 (12th in nation) with a save, while Janiga is 5-2 in 51.2 innings with 31 strikeouts, and Ramsey is 6-1 in 47.1 innings with 40 K's. Bayer pitched a seven-inning no-hitter against Amherst three weeks ago. O'Sullivan-Pierce is 2-0 with a 1.86 ERA and 31 strikeouts in 29 IP, and junior LHP Derek Anderson (Great Falls, Va.) is 4-1 with a 4.21 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 25.2 innings of work.
At the plate, Killeen leads the way with a .475 batting average (2nd in NESCAC, 8th in nation), while Graham is hitting .429 (6th in NESCAC), Sullivan is batting .392, junior OF Jack Abbott (Longmeadow, Mass.) is batting .377, and senior co-captain 2B Ryan Piacentini (Portland, Maine) is hitting .366. Killeen also has 52 runs (1st in NESCAC, 9th in nation), 50 RBI (2nd in NESCAC), 15 doubles (2nd in NESCAC), 11 home runs (1st in NESCAC), and 109 total bases (1st in NESCAC), while Graham boasts 40 runs scored to go with 50 RBI (2nd in NESCAC, 25th in nation), 13 doubles, 10 homers (2nd in NESCAC, 16th in nation), and 97 total bases (2nd in NESCAC), and Piacentini adds 45 RBI (4th in NESCAC) and seven home runs (3rd in NESCAC).
Click here for NESCAC Player of the Week information
