Mahwah, NJ: The Farmingdale State College baseball team held off a late rally by Ramapo College to earn an 8-3 non-conference road win. The Rams improve to 10-6 overall while the Roadrunners not stand at 6-7 on the year.
The Rams got on the board in the top of the first with an unearned run, 1-0. Neither team would score until the top of the sixth inning when Farmingdale added four runs to extend the lead, 5-0. The Roadrunners got on the board in the bottom of the seventh with two runs.
Vincenzo Sita led off with a hard-hit single through the left side of the infield before
Matt Meola drove a ball into the left-center field gap for a one-out double. Following the second out of the inning,
Philip Mahlik laced a single through the right-side of the infield that allowed Sita to score while Meola moved to third. Meola later scored on a pass ball to come within three, 2-5.
Farmingdale State would get those two runs back in the top of the eighth when Brian Perez put down a perfect sacrifice bunt for a suicide squeeze allowing Nick Attardi to score. Their second run of the inning would score on a wild pitch to push the lead 7-2. The Rams added one more run in the ninth, once again on a sacrifice bunt from Brandon O'Neill as Tyler Schrimpf slide home safely, 8-2.
Ramapo scored their final run in the ninth before the Rams shutdown the Roadrunner comeback. Meola led off the inning with a walk before
Matt Carovillano singled to third base, the throw was misplayed allowing Meola to move to third and Carovillano to advance to second with no outs. Mahlik would beat out an infield single to load the bases before everyone moved up on base and Meola scored on a wild pitch, 3-8. Following a pitching change by the Rams, Sean Burke closed out the game by inducing a strike out and pop fly to right field to end the threat.
Justin Mattera (1-0) earned the win in relief for the Rams with seven strikeouts.
Nick Recarte took the loss for Ramapo as he struck out six, walked six and scattered six hits over 5.1 innings of work. Meola led the team at the plate finishing 3-3 with two runs scored while Mahlik was 2-5 with one RBI.
The Roadrunners open NJAC conference place on Saturday, March 30th when they travel to Montclair State University for a double header at 11:30am.
