Baseball Marches On In NCAA Regional; Beats Amherst 3-2
AUBURN, N.Y. --The Ithaca College baseball team defeated Amherst 3-2 in an NCAA Tournament third round game Friday evening at Falcon Park. The Bombers advance to the championship game of the New York Regional and are one win away from advancing to the national tournament's championship weekend in Appleton, Wis. Ithaca will face an opponent to be determined at 5 p.m. Saturday in Auburn.
Jasper Adams (Amherst, Mass./Amherst Regional) was the winning pitcher. He threw seven innings and allowed just four hits and two walks. He had five strikeouts and one of the two runs that crossed was earned.
Bomber left fielder
Andrew Turner (Randolph, N.J./Randolph) stayed red-hot through the regional. He was 2-for-3 on the day with a sacrifice bunt and shares the lead among all players at the New York Regional with six hits and is 6-for-8 overall with two doubles and two runs scored.
Turner had a single as the Bombers took the lead with two runs in the top of the second.
Matt Connolly (Kingston, Mass./Silver Lake) walked and
Luke Stark (Schenectady/Guilderland) followed with a double to right center. Connolly was running on the play and scored on the double. Turner's single moved Stark to third and an infield grounder for a fielder's choice from
Christian Brown (East Greenbush/Columbia) brought in Stark.
Amherst answered with two runs in the bottom of the third on two hits and took advantage of an Ithaca error. That was the only half inning that the Lord Jeffs scored, as the pitching of Adams and Wagner and solid Ithaca defense did the job.
In the fourth, another Turner double started the go-ahead rally, and he moved to third on a balk. A bloop single to right by Locastro scored Turner with Ithaca's third run, which held up as the game-winner.
In addition to Turner, Locastro had two hits. Brown,
Corey Caswell (Broadalbin/Broadalbin-Perth), Connolly and Stark also hit safely. Locastro stole a base, his 36th of the season.
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