Seahawks win bout of birds in CCC opening round

NEWPORT, R.I. - Sophomore Tim Harris (Southbury, Conn.) led the Salve Regina baseball team to an 11-5 victory over Roger Williams in the first round of the Commonwealth Coast Conference playoffs Thursday afternoon.

Roger Williams' freshmen Jamie Timothy (Cohasset, Mass.) hit a single up the middle put the Hawks on the board with a 1-0 lead. Junior Mike Pascarella (Milford, Conn.) homered to left field soon after to bring two more runs in for the Hawks. Salve Regina answered back at the bottom of the second inning when freshman Ryan Kelly (Waldwick, N.J.) hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Harris to put the Seahawks' on the board.

Junior Tyler Colby (Easton, Conn.) led off the inning with a walk, and after a strike out classmate Dominic Di Sano (Central falls, R.I.) got his own free pass after getting him to put two runners on before Harris launched his first three run homerun of the game to give Salve Regina its first lead of the game, 5-3 .

Sophomore Joe Haley (North Kingston, R.I.) and Di Sano welcomed the Hawks new pitcher with back to back singles to open up the fourth inning. Haley eventually came around to score as junior Nicholas Dell' Anno (reading Mass.) reached on an errant throw attempting to sacrifice the runners into scoring position. Harris then hit his second three run homerun to break open the game to give the Seahawks a 9-3 lead.

Sophomore starter Kyle Pheland (No. Scituate R.I.)  found his grove striking out the side of the fifth inning to keep the hawks at bay.  Salve Regina tacked on two more runs to extend their lead to 11-3. Haley and Dell'Anno hit a pair of ground rule doubles to score the Seahawks final two runs of the game.

Pheland pitched himself out of trouble with two runners in scoring position, the right hander got pinch hitter freshmen Shawn Cariglio (Milford Conn.) to fly out to left on an 0-2 pitch to end the scoring threat. The Hawks did get two runs back in the top of the eighth inning. Senior John Oppenhimer (Westpoint Conn.) came home after stealing third and an error by the Seahawks catcher allowed him to cross the plate and move junior Mike Thomas ( Plainville, Conn) to third. Sophomore Chris Travers (E. Freetown, Mass.)  hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Thomas for the last run in the game, with the score 11-5 in the favor of the Seahawks.

Freshmen relief pitcher Branden Hoxsie (Warwick R.I.) shut down the hawks in the ninth inning to finish off the game for salve Regina.

Pheland earned the win on the mound for Salve Regina, going 7.0 strong innings, allowing just three runs, none earned, on three hits and two walks while striking out nine Hawks. Sophomore Brendan Telfer (Avon, Conn.) endured the loss for Roger Williams, allowing five runs, all earned on six hits and four walks.

Salve Regina Seahawks will host Wentworth Institute of Technology at Reynolds Field in the second round of the CCC championship on Friday May 3 at 3 p.m. Roger Williams goes on to play the five-time defending champion and top-seeded Western New England University