Box Score MANCHESTER, N.H. –No. 6 seed Felician College surrendered seven first-inning runs, including five after two were out, in its 9-3 loss to top seed and tournament host Southern New Hampshire University in the opening round of the 2014 NCAA Division II East Regional Baseball Championship on Thursday afternoon at Penmen Field. Southern New Hampshire (40-12) is ranked No. 18 in the most recent national D-II writers' poll.
Felician (29-19), which was making its NCAA Tournament debut, falls to the losers' bracket, where it will play an elimination game on Friday at 10 a.m. in Manchester against No. 2 seed Franklin Pierce University. FPU suffered a 3-0 setback to No. 5 seed Dowling College later on Thursday.
After SNHU senior right-hander Derrick Sylvester (Franklin, N.H.) struck out all three Golden Falcon hitters in the top of the first inning, the Penmen dented the scoreboard in the bottom of the frame on a one-out, two-run home run by senior left fielder Al Stanton (Sandwich, Mass.). Three batters later, an Alejandro Diaz (Old Bridge, N.J.) single plated a third run, and a Felician fielding error extended the inning.
A two-run double by Bryan Toland (Wildwood, N.J.) chased Felician starter Jerry Vasto (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.) (6-3), but the Penmen weren't through. They totaled eight hits in the inning, including a rally-capping two-run single by leadoff man Brendan O'Brien (East Bridgewater, Mass.).
Felician loaded the bases with one-out in the fourth, but settled for a single tally on Jordan Tackett's (Fredericksburg, Va.) sacrifice fly. The Golden Falcons received another run-scoring fly ball from Scott De Jong (North Haledon, N.J.) and an RBI single from Joe Petosa (Spotswood, N.J.) in the fifth to pull to within 7-3, but Sylvester and the Penmen bullpen held the visitors down the rest of the way. Petosa garnered three of Felician's seven base hits.
Sophomore John Holland (Jackson, N.J.) kept Felician in contention, pitching 6 1/3 innings of relief. After giving up a run in the first, he kept SNHU off of the scoreboard until running into a second-and-third, none-out jam in the seventh. Following a strikeout, O'Brien got a grounder past the drawn-in infield to score both runners.
Holland finished with five strikeouts, including the 100th of his career. Sylvester fanned eight batters and gave up two earned runs on seven hits in seven innings. O'Brien was 3 for 4 with four RBI and three stolen bases.
