April 22, 2009
Box Score
BURLINGTON, Vt. - Red-shirt sophomore catcher Bryce Nugent (Binghamton, N.Y.) singled in the top of the 10th to drive home sophomore second baseman Ricky Pacione (Newburgh, N.Y.) with the game-winning run as the Marist baseball defeated Vermont on Wednesday, 7-6. Marist trailed 6-1 after three innings, but tied the game in the top of the ninth before scoring the game-winning run in extra innings.
Senior closer Jacob Wiley (Cape Vincent, N.Y.) earned the win, pitching scoreless innings in the ninth and 10th. Wiley, who picked up his team-leading fifth victory of the season against just one loss, also had a couple of strikeouts.
Nugent went 3-for-4 with a run scored and two RBIs. Junior first baseman Ryan Gauck (Clifton Park, N.Y.) and senior left fielder Brian McDonough (Hanover, Mass.) added two hits apiece, with McDonough also scoring two runs. Junior shortstop Richard Curylo (Staten Island, N.Y.) drove in a pair of runs.
An RBI single by Gauck gave Marist a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but the Catamounts roared back with two runs in the first and four in the third. The Red Foxes answered with two runs in the fourth without getting a hit to cut Vermont's lead to 6-3. Marist made it 6-4 in the fifth on a double-play groundout, and narrowed the deficit to 6-5 an inning later on an RBI single by Nugent.
Meanwhile, the Marist bullpen did its part to keep Vermont from adding to its lead. Sophomore left-hander Peter Barone (Hauppauge, N.Y.) in the sixth. Although Vermont loaded the bases with one out in the sixth, Barone escaped the jam with a pair of strikeouts to end the inning. Junior right-hander Eric Alessio (Nyack, N.Y.) tossed a 1-2-3 seventh, and freshman righty Jake Rifkin (West Deptford, N.J.) pitched a scoreless eighth.
In the ninth, McDonough reached on a leadoff single. He then stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Curylo to knot the game at six apiece.
In the 10th, Pacione led off the inning with a double to left field, and Nugent's RBI single gave the Red Foxes their first lead since the top of the first.
Marist now stands at 20-18 overall. The Red Foxes return to action with a three-game series at Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference foe Siena this weekend. The teams will play a doubleheader starting at noon on Saturday, followed by a single game at noon on Sunday.
