Box Score 1 MANCHESTER, N.H. – After extending its season with an 8-7, 11-inning victory over No. 4 seed LIU Post, the Felician University baseball team saw its 2017 season come to an end with an 8-2 loss to host and No. 1 seed Southern New Hampshire University during the losers' bracket final of the NCAA Division II East Regional Championship tournament on Sunday at Penmen Field.
Felician (35-15) finished third in the tournament after entering as the No. 5 seed. It was the Golden Falcons' best finish in their three all-time Regional appearances. For the second consecutive year, Felician established program records for wins and winning percentage (.700).
Felician began its Sunday needing two victories to advance to Monday's championship round. It first was faced with taking on LIU Post in a rematch of the teams' opening-round game, won by the Pioneers on Thursday. In the longest appearance of his career on Sunday, Golden Falcon junior right-hander John-Paul Codelia (Brooklyn, N.Y.) (1-2) pitched the final 3 1/3 hitless innings to earn his first collegiate victory.
Felician, the designated visiting team, recovered from a 4-3 deficit with four runs in the top of the seventh inning. Junior Bruce Strckland (Hazlet, N.J.) led off with a game-tying home run. After Ralph Caccacale (Massapequa, N.Y.) reached on an error and Matt Diesel (Massapequa Park, N.Y.) walked, senior Brennan Price (Middlesex, N.J.) blasted a go-ahead three-run homerun to left-center field.
The Pioneers got a run back in the bottom of the seventh on an Anthony Vaglica (Franklin Square, N.Y.) sacrifice fly, then tied the game in the eighth when Dave Brehm (Bohemia, N.Y.) blasted an RBI triple and scored on Sal Geraci's (Bayport, N.Y.) one-out single. Codelia entered with runners on first and second and two outs and induced a flyout to keep the contest even at 7-7.
Caccavale again reached on an error leading off the 11th, and was sacrificed to second base by Diesel. Price came through with a run-scoring single up the middle, and Codelia worked around a one-out walk in the home half to secure the victory for the Golden Falcons. Vaglica gave the Felician fans a scare with a long fly ball, but left fielder Diesel caught the ball on the warning track for the second out.
Price went 3 for 5 with four RBI and senior catcher Matt Kleinstein (Marlboro, N.J.) had two doubles for Felician. Geraci was 3 for 5 with two doubles and Vaglica drove in three runs for LIU Post (32-20). The victory was the 350th in the 14-year career of Felician head coach Chris Langan, and allowed the Golden Falcons to set the program record of 35 wins.
Felician junior left-hander Jason Polgano (Bronx, N.Y.) (6-3) was working on a three-hit shutout through 6 2/3 innings against SNHU (43-10). The Golden Falcons had built a 2-0 lead on Strickland's RBI single in the third and a fourth-inning solo home run by Ronnie Grant (Burlington, N.J.).
But Penmen junior Caleb Potter (Mentor, Ohio) dropped an RBI double inches inside the right-field foul line to put his team on the scoreboard, and John Stanton (Sandwich, Mass.) followed with a go-ahead two-run home run to straightaway center field. SNHU plated three more runs in the eighth on home runs by Zach Goldstein (Merrick, N.Y.) and Ryan Sullivan (Hopkinton, Mass.) to take full control.
SNHU reliever Stephen Fortuna (Metuchen, N.J.) (5-0) scattered five hits over the final 3 2/3 scoreless innings to earn the victory. Strickland, Kleinstein, and J.R. Meneses (Lake Worth, Fla.) had two hits apiece for the Golden Falcons.
SNHU faces St. Thomas Aquinas College on Monday, needing two victories over the Spartans for the regional championship.
