Baseball Falls to Hartford in Final Non-Conference Contest

The Central Connecticut baseball team fell to Hartford, 7-3, on Tuesday morning at Dunkin' Donuts Park. The contest was the Blue Devils' final non-conference contest of the regular season. CCSU slips to 21-19 overall on the season after the defeat.

Central is back in action at home this weekend when it hosts Fairleigh Dickinson for a three-game Northeast Conference series beginning Friday.

Hartford opened the scoring in the second inning after a one-out walk put Zach Ardito on base. A failed pickoff attempt and an error allowed him to reach third base before scoring on a single by Drew Demartino.

CCSU got on the board in the top of the third with a pair of runs. Sophomores Sam Loda and TT Bowens opened the inning with back-to-back doubles. Bowens' knock into the corner in left field drove in Loda to make it 1-1. A two-out single through the right side by sophomore Jay Devito scored Bowens to give the Blue Devils a 2-1 lead.

Sophomore Matt Shane started on the mound for CCSU and only allowed two hits through the first four innings, but ran into trouble in the fifth. A pair of errors by the Blue Devils would lead to three runs for the Hawks who took a 4-2 lead.

The Hawks tacked on a run in the sixth and got a two-run homerun from Chris Sullivan in the seventh to push the lead to 7-2.

In the eighth, sophomore Jay Devito reached on a one-out fielder's choice. Classmate Peyton Stephens followed with a triple off the wall in right field to plate a run and make it 7-3. 

Shane finished with 5.0 innings pitched and allowed four unearned runs on four hits. He struck out two and walked two. Stephens tossed two innings and junior Michael Delease pitched a scoreless eighth inning for Central.

Bowens banged out three hits for Central, while Devito added a pair. Each drove in a run and scored another.

CCSU hosts Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday, May 10, at 3:00 p.m.