MASSACHUSETTS MARITIME BASEBALL

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Commodore Hendy Field, Buzzards Bay, Mass.

FINAL:              MASSACHUSETTS MARITIME 5, NEWBURY 4

BUZZARDS BAY, Mass. --  Sophomore Logan Sullo’s (Acushnet, Mass.) solo homer in the bottom of the eighth proved to be the game-winner as Massachusetts Maritime held off a late inning rally to post a 5-4 non-league college baseball victory over Newbury Thursday afternoon at Commodore Hendy Field.

The host Buccaneers (7-8) jumped out to a 1-0 second inning lead when Sullo tripled and scored on freshman Paul Sances’s (Middleboro, Mass.), and a steal of home by sophomore Billy Keane (Braintree, Mass.) later in the frame extended that margin to 2-0.  Massachusetts Maritime struck for two more runs in the fourth on an RBI double by senior Greg Downs (Marshfield, Mass.) that was followed by a run-scoring single off the bat of sophomore Casey Furnas (Boca Raton, Fla.), but the visiting Nighthawks (9-12) got a run back in the seventh on an RBI single by freshman Cesarin Baez-Lara (Brighton, Mass.) and closed to within one in the top of the eighth by scoring twice on a pair of two-out errors.  Sullo’s second home run of the spring down the right field line proved to be a most valuable insurance run for the Buccaneers, as Newbury received a two-out RBI single off the bat of junior C.J. Ingraham (Georgetown, Mass.) in the ninth to close back to within 5-4 but got no closer, as Massachusetts Maritime junior Daniel Avery (Milford, Mass.) induced a line drive to strand the potential tying run.

Downs rapped out three of the Buccaneers’ seven hits on the afternoon in support of freshman Travis Zurowski (Brooklyn, Conn.), who scattered four hits and struck out a pair over 6 1/3 innings of work to earn his first career victory.  Avery worked around two hits and struck out three in recording the final four outs to earn his first save for Massachusetts Maritime, which claimed its sixth win in seven series meetings between the two schools.  Seven different players collected hits in the setback for Newbury, as sophomore James McGrorry (Oakhurst, N.J.) allowed six hits and three earned runs while striking out four to fall to 0-2 on the season for the Nighthawks.

Massachusetts Maritime begins defense of its Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season title on Saturday afternoon by hosting Worcester State in a league twinbill at Commodore Hendy Field beginning at Noon, while Newbury heads to Bennington, Vt. on Saturday afternoon to begin a three-game New England Collegiate Conference set with Southern Vermont that begins at 1:00 p.m.