The St. Lawrence University baseball team trailed by three runs in the ninth inning, but a five-hit rally gave the Saints a 12-11 win to clinch the regular season series against the Hobart Statesmen on Sunday afternoon in Canton, N.Y.

The Saints got the bats going early. Brett Federico beat out an infield single and advanced to second on an error. Michael Goretti moved him over to third, and Caleb Clark brought him home with an RBI single. Hobart evened the score at one with a second inning home run to left center field. The Statesmen took the lead in the top of the third when catcher Tyler Gallagher doubled off the center field wall. He would bring in two more runs in the fifth to spark a four-run inning and the visitors jumped out to a 6-1 advantage.

In the bottom of the fifth the Timothy Connor and Jimmy Liberatore worked walks, and Jackson Brinker hit a pinch-hit double to score them both. Sean Desjardins switched places with Brinker, doubling to center field to cut the Statesmen's lead to 6-4.
Huck Haun took the mound to start the sixth inning and struck out a two on his way to a scoreless half-inning. Federico reached on a walk, Goretti on a fielder's choice, and Connor was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the inning. Liberatore hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Federico, and Clark tied the game with a single to bring home Goretti. Tynan Creagh, the first-year left fielder, doubled to left field to bring two more runs across and the Saints led 8-6.

The Statesmen scored five unanswered runs in the seventh and eighth innings to lead 11-8 and were three outs away from taking the three-game series. Creagh led off the bottom of the ninth with his second double of the afternoon, and Desjardins singled up the middle to put runners on the corners. First-year catcher John Donnellan poked one through the left side of the infield to bring Creagh across the plate. Stephen Colangelo, the Saints' shortstop, kept the rally going beating out an infield single to score Desjardins, and Federico singled to left center to score the catcher and make it a tie game.

Federico and Colangelo would move into scoring positions on a wild pitch, and Goretti worked a walk to load the bases. Connor hit a ball high to shallow right, and some confusion between the second baseman and the right fielder allowed the ball to drop and Colangelo scored to walk-off the Statesmen twice in as many games.

Brett Parker got the start and pitched four and a third innings. Joshua Polumbo finished the fifth inning, and Haun and Sam Fosberg each pitched two innings. Each allowed zero earned runs and had two strikeouts in their respective two innings. Fosberg got the win in his first career decision.


"We were resilient today against a really tough team," said head coach Kenny Collins. "All three games in the series came down to one run, and we were able to execute when we needed to. We're right in the heart of our schedule now and have a quick turnaround to get ready for RIT. Depth is one of our strengths and we need to keep leaning on that as the games start to add up."

Clark, Creagh, and Brinker each finished with a pair of RBI. Federico and Colangelo each had three-hit games, while Connor, Clark, Creagh, and Desjardins all had two.

The Saints took two out of three this weekend against the Statesmen to improve to 7-8 and 2-4 in the Liberty League. Hobart fell to 4-14 and 1-8 in the conference.

The Saints return to the diamond on April 11^th with a twin bill at RIT, with game one scheduled to start at 1 p.m.