Hopkins’s baseball team went a perfect 3-0 in the Centennial Conference Tournament this weekend, locking up their fifth straight conference title and ensuring an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
The Jays compiled the best record in conference play during the regular season with a 15-3 record and won the right to host the four team tournament for the second consecutive year.
Hopkins’s first opponent was Ursinus College, who they defeated twice during the regular season. Junior pitcher Alex Eliopoulos, recently named the 2011 Centennial Conference Pitcher of the Year, got the start for the Jays and worked out of a jam in the first inning when he stranded three Ursinus base runners and did not allow a run.
The Jays offense quickly gave their starter a lead to work with when they scored three runs in the bottom half of the inning behind graduate student and catcher Joe Borrelli’s three run homer to right-center field. For Borrelli, a first team All-Centennial selection this year, his fifth home run of the season capped a month of outstanding offensive production in which his batting average rose to a team-best .358.
In the fifth inning, Borrelli came through again when he collected an RBI single off of Ursinus starter Nate Schnell. Senior outfielder Jesse Sikorski, who was also named to the all-conference first team, followed up Borrelli’s hit with an RBI single of his own to extend the Jay lead to five.
The Bears finally answered in the top of the next inning, however. After leaving eight runners on base through the first five innings, Ursinus scored five runs in their half of the sixth to tie the game.
The score remained tied until the home half of the seventh when Bears pitcher Steve Berardi backed himself into a corner. With one out and the bases empty, Berardi hit graduate student second baseman Steve Bejsiuk with a pitch. He then plunked the next batter, Borrelli, as well. The table was then set for Sikorski. The Jays left fielder came through by launching a three-run bomb to right field to break the tie.
Hopkins tacked on two additional runs later in the inning, both charged to Berardi’s line, when sophomore third baseman Ryan Zakszeski hit a two-run double to put the Jays ahead, 10-5.
Things got interesting in the top of the eighth when Ursinus loaded the bases with a run in and nobody out. However, junior relief pitcher Aaron Schwartz limited the Bears to only one additional run in the inning. He stayed on to finish off the ninth as well, as Hopkins prevailed 10-7.
Saturday’s game pitted Hopkins against Franklin & Marshall. The teams had split a doubleheader in early April and the game would decide who would advance to the championship round.
The Jays were facing the Diplomats’ starting pitcher Matt Valente for the second time this year and jumped on him early. Hopkins scored a run in the second inning on a two out RBI single from junior outfielder Mike Musary.
The Jays followed that up by adding on four runs in the third frame, assisted by two Franklin & Marshall errors. The final of the four runs was scored on a perfectly executed double steal with runners on first and third when sophomore shortstop Kyle Neverman took second ahead of the throw and Zakszeski came home from third safely.
The five runs the Jays scored in the first three innings were all the run support that Hopkins’ starting pitcher Matt Wiegand would get. It also was all that Wiegand, a graduate student, would need. The right hander tossed his second complete game of the season, surrendering only three runs, just two earned, over the full nine innings to earn his sixth win of the season.
Jays head coach Bob Babb visited Wiegand on the mound in the top of the ninth after the Diplomats’ first batter of the inning, Kevin Shields, had doubled. After Wiegand assured Babb that his arm felt fine, Hopkins’s skipper elected to leave him in.
“I told him ‘You’ve pitched great and you deserve a chance to finish it,’” Babb said after the game. Wiegand rewarded his coach’s decision, retiring the next three batters with ease to put the finishing touches on an outstanding performance. As a result of his performance, Wiegand was named the Centennial Conference’s Pitcher of the Week.
The next day the Jays met the tournament’s second seed, Haverford College, in the championship round. Although Hopkins’s starting pitcher Sam Eagleson, a junior, allowed three runs to the Fords in the top of the first, his offense quickly picked him up.
Haverford’s starting pitcher Dan Hochberg was chased from the game after five batters, following a three run homer from Hopkins’s sophomore first baseman Jeff Lynch. Lynch was named the conference hitter of the week after going 5-13 over the weekend with four runs batted in. He and Wiegand were named co-Mike Durgala tournament MVPs.
By the time the dust had cleared and the bottom of the first was finished, the Jays had sent 11 men to the plate and scored seven runs. Musary had a pair of hits in the inning and two RBIs.
After Eagleson posted a zero in the top of the second inning, Hopkins added three more runs to take a 10-3 lead. The Fords’ third pitcher of the game, Patrick Falkoff, came in to limit the damage in the second and worked the rest of the game for Haverford without allowing a run.
The Fords chipped away against Eagleson, scoring single runs in the sixth and eighth innings to make it 10-5. They finally forced him out of the game with three straight one-out hits in the top of the ninth.
With the tying run on deck, Schwartz entered and walked Louis DeRosa to load the bases. Schwartz would secure the final two outs of the afternoon, however, by getting Justin Coulter to pop out to right and striking out Matt Liscovitz.
The Jays poured out of the dugout to mob Schwartz to the right of the mound as Hopkins celebrated another trip to the NCAA tournament.
The Centennial Championship marked the fifth straight for the Jays as they hope to return to the College World Series for the third time in four years. Regional play will begin May 18th.
