Dominican And Felician Set To Meet For CACC Baseball Championship
Wilmington, DE - Fourth seeded Felician College and top seeded Dominican College have advanced to the championship round of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) Baseball Tournament with victories today. Felician upended Bloomfield, 7-6, to remain unbeaten in the tournament, while the Chargers defeated Wilmington and Bloomfield to emerge from the loser's bracket. The Chargers will have to defeat the Golden Falcons twice on Saturday to win the title, while Felician needs just one win to take home the championship. The action will begin at noon and the second game, if necessary, will start at approximately 3:00 pm. Both games can be heard live on the web.
Dominican (38-16) and Wilmington (30-21) engaged in a classic pitching duel in the opening game of the day, as both Matt Dilgen (Staten Island, NY) of Dominican and Kenny McGrady of Wilmington hurled complete games.
The game was tied, 1-1, entering the ninth inning, setting up a wild finish. The Wildcats had a chance to take the lead in the top of the inning, but senior Derek Pugh was thrown out at home plate by Dominican left fielder Mike Zani (Goshen, NY) after a two-out single by sophomore Brian Testa.
Dominican took advantage and plated the winning run without recording a base hit in the bottom of the inning. Junior Tom Keegan (Dickson City, PA) and senior DH Chad Duesler (Northville, NY) led off with walks and sophomore Sean Brown (Massapequa, NY) reached on an error to load the bases with nobody out. Two batters later, Zani sent a grounder to first base and the throw to home plate was low, allowing Keegan to cross with the winning run.
Dilgen improved to 7-4 and allowed seven hits and one run in 9.0 innings of work, while fanning 12. McGrady, the CACC Pitcher of the Year, surrendered only five hits and fanned 10 to fall to 9-2.
The second game was equally exciting as Felician (29-23) battled back from a 6-1 deficit to take a 7-6 victory from Bloomfield (26-27). The Golden Falcons plated six runs on six hits and took advantage of three Deacon errors in the decisive eighth inning to advance to the championship. Senior catcher Mike Rooth led the way by going 2-for-4 with a run and two RBI, while junior 1B Frank Quintana went 2-for-4 with a run scored. Freshman right-hander Alex Mazalatis earned the win in relief to improve to 3-1 on the year.
Web Zackery led Bloomfield with a 3-for-4 effort to go with a run and two RBI, while senior catcher Matt Dutch also collected three hits, scored twice and knocked in one run.
Dominican cruised to victory in the final game of the day in a 15-0 triumph over Bloomfield. The Chargers pushed across five runs in the opening inning and added six more in the second to put the game out of reach early.
Sophomore right fielder Brown led the way by going 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBI, while senior DH Duesler went 2-for-5 with two runs and two RBI. Junior right-hander Joe Catanese (Huntington, NY) went the distance and allowed only six hits while fanning six and not walking a batter. He improves to 6-2 this season.
The tournament schedule with today's results are below.
Thursday, May 11
Game 1: #3 Bloomfield 6, #2 Wilmington 4
Game 2: #1 Dominican vs. #4 Felician
Friday, May 12
Game 3: Dominican 2, Wilmington 1
Game 4: Felician 7, Bloomfield 6
Game 5: Dominican 15, Bloomfield 0
Saturday, May 13
Game 6: Dominican vs. Felician Noon
Game 7: If Necessary 3:00 pm

















