Hawks finish one win shy of championship

PHOTOS BY CHRIS KELLY staff Above, Monmouth University’s Matt Marc-Aurele hurls a strike during the Hawks’ NEC Tournament opener against Sacred Heart on Saturday in Lakewood. At left, Nick Massari completes a double play. Despite showing the resiliency of a champion, the Monmouth University baseball team ended up one win short of becoming one.

The Hawks fought back from an opening-game loss in the Northeast Conference Tournament to earn a shot at the title against regular-season champ Quinnipiac, but lost a 7-3 affair at FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood on Monday.

“We had our opportunities, but we just couldn’t get it done,” said head coach Dean Ehehalt, now in his 12th year as the Hawks’ coach. “We scored single runs in three separate innings, but just couldn’t break through and get multiple runs. They were able to do that, and that was a big factor.”

Quinnipiac got a solid effort from senior Mike Spahr, a Shore Regional graduate, who went the distance allowing two earned runs on nine hits, while striking out three.

“We hit him. I thought we hit the ball pretty well today, but he made some big pitches in some big spots,” Ehehalt said.

Quinnipiac got things started in the first inning as John Delaney walked and scored on a two-out double by Tim Binkoski, making it 1-0. The Bobcats added a run in the second when Ricky Coppola, who was hit by a pitch, came around to score on a two-out single by Ryan Rizzo.

The Hawks cut into Quinnipiac’s lead in the top of third. Brett Hardie walked, Mike Hussa was hit by a pitch, and Fran Rotella walked to load the bases. Nick Massari hit a sacrifice fly to center field, which scored Hardie, but Hussa was doubled up for leaving second base early.

Quinnipiac put up three runs with two outs in the third. Kevin MacIlvane cracked a solo homer down the left field line and Delaney hit a two-run single to left center to stretch the lead to 5-1. Monmouth scored single runs in the fourth and sixth innings, while Quinnipiac answered with single runs in the fifth and seventh making it 7-3.

Spahr and Monmouth reliever Kevin Schneider held their opponents scoreless for the final three innings. Monmouth starter Vince Grande pitched two and two-thirds innings allowing five runs on seven hits.

For Monmouth, Cip Apicelli, of Ocean Township, was 3-for-4 with an RBI, while Hardie was 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored.

After rain washed away the first day of the NEC tournament on Friday, the Hawks began playing on Saturday, but quickly found themselves with their backs against the wall when they dropped their tournament opener to second-seeded Sacred Heart University, 3-0.

Monmouth couldn’t solve NEC Pitcher of the Year Jay Monti, who scattered eight hits, struck out six and walked none. But the Hawks certainly had their chances, collecting seven of their eight hits in the first six frames.

They failed to take advantage of leadoff singles in the second and sixth innings as Monti retired the next three batters both times. The Hawks also had runners on first and third in the third inning, but failed to cash in, while a double play in the fifth squelched another potential rally.

Meanwhile, Matt Marc-Aurele also pitched a solid game for Monmouth, allowing only five hits. Two of them, however, came in the fourth inning when a leadoff single, an errant pickoff attempt, a passed ball, and an RBI single gave SHU a 1-0 lead. That’s the way it stood until the Pioneers added a pair of insurance runs in the last of the seventh.

Junior catcher Mike Hussa led the Hawks with three hits, including a double, while second baseman Nick Massari added a pair of singles.

“Their kid pitched a real good game,” Ehehalt said. “Our kid pitched a good game, too, but he was just outdueled.”

Monmouth came back right after that game and, staring elimination in the face, beat Wagner 8-4 in a losers’ bracket game.

“We bounced right back and won our second game to make sure we got to Sunday,” Ehehalt said. “Our kids just went out and battled. There’s no room for error in the losers’ bracket.”

Joe Cummings started and hurled the first six innings as he gave up eight hits and three earned runs. Junior lefty Grande and junior right-hander Schneider worked the final three innings in relief to preserve the win for Cummings.

Meanwhile, Hussa, freshman first baseman Andy Meyers, and senior center fielder Apicelli had two hits apiece for Monmouth, and junior third baseman Marc Weres drove in two runs.

Jared Williams gave the Hawks a 1-0 lead with an RBI single in the top of the first. After Wagner tied it in the second, Monmouth regained the lead for good with an unearned run in the fifth. Then in the sixth, Weres tripled in two more runs and scored on a balk to make it 5-1.

Wagner made it 5-3 in its half of the sixth and closed to within 5-4 in the seventh. But that’s as close as the Seahawks would get. Hussa led off the eighth with a double to center, went to third on a passed ball, and scored on a bloop single by Meyers.

“He’s only a freshman, but he’s been clutch all year,” Ehehalt said of Meyers, who would eventually score himself on a wild pitch to make it 7-4

Monmouth added an insurance run in the ninth when Apicelli tripled and Brett Hardie of Toms River delivered an RBI single.

“Our kids played well and responded in a pressure situation,” Ehehalt said. “We got good pitching, played good defense, and got timely hitting.”

They also got another solid relief effort from Schneider, the NEC Relief Pitcher of the Year, who retired Wagner in order in the bottom of the ninth, striking out two of the three batters he faced.

“Wagner made a run at us, but then we put it away and Kevin came in and closed it out,” Ehehalt said. “He’s been doing that all year.”

The win assured Monmouth of a return trip to FirstEnergy Park on Sunday to face the loser of the winners’ bracket game between Quinnipiac and Sacred Heart at noon. Quinnipiac, the tourney’s top seed, won that game 7-0, setting the stage for a rematch between Monmouth and SHU in the losers’ bracket final.

This time, however, is was all Hawks as freshman pitcher Brad Brach of Freehold tossed a complete-game six-hitter, while senior Fran Rotella collected three hits, including two in a seven-run fourth inning.

But it was Sacred Heart who jumped out to an early lead. After Hussa’s RBI single in the last of the third gave Monmouth a 1-0 lead, the Pioneers reached Brach for three runs in the top of the fourth.

The lead was short-lived, however, as the Hawks sent 12 batters to the plate in the bottom of the inning. DH Frank Pilitowski’s two-run double tied the game at 3-3. Apicelli then doubled in two more runs to give Monmouth a 5-3 lead. Kyle Higgins followed with an RBI triple, Hardie singled Higgins home, and Rotella added another RBI single, his second hit of the inning, to make it 8-3.

That was more than enough support for Brach, who retired 10 batters in a row after giving up the three runs in the fourth. He gave up only one more hit the rest of the game — a two-out single in the eighth — and finished with six strikeouts and one walk to raise his record to 6-4.

Besides Rotella’s three hits, Apicelli, Higgins, Hardie and Hussa all had two hits.

The Hawks had little time to rest, however, as they had to face unbeaten Quinnipiac next. Needing to beat the Bobcats twice to win the NEC title, Monmouth accomplished the first half of the equation with an impressive 8-2 win over the regular-season champs.

For the third straight tournament game, however, Quinnipiac scored in the first inning to take an early 1-0 lead. But Monmouth came back with two runs in the last of the third on Rotella’s two-run double to left center. The Hawks added two more runs in the fourth on a walk and three straight singles by Hardie, Higgins and Hussa to make it 4-1.

In the fifth, a triple by Weres and run-scoring single by Pilitowski upped the lead to 5-1. Monmouth then sealed the win with three runs in the sixth, all unearned, on RBI singles by Massari, Rotella and Pilitowski. Meanwhile, Brett Conner (4-2) started and pitched eight and one-third innings before Schneider came on to record the final two outs.

“Brett Conner is only a sophomore, but he really stepped up,” Ehehalt said. “He found out he was pitching an hour before the game and he did a really nice job. He was effective and kept them off balance.”

The win was the 30th this season for the Hawks, and set up a winner-take-all showdown Monday for the NEC championship and a berth in the NCAA tournament.

“We’ve worked all season to get to this point,” Ehehalt said before leaving the field Sunday night.

And while it didn’t work out, Ehehalt had no regrets.

“You don’t like losing your last game, but we certainly had a real good year,” he said. “We’re a young, inexperienced team that lost a lot of guys to graduation, but we still managed to put together a solid year. We just came up one game short, four runs short.”