Baseball Drops Series-Opener to Bryant on Friday
The series continues with a doubleheader on Saturday.
The Central Connecticut baseball team fell to Bryant, 15-5, in the opener of a four-game Northeast Conference series on Friday afternoon. With the loss, CCSU falls to 8-14 on the year and 2-3 in NEC play. Bryant improved to 9-13 and 1-0 in the NEC.
Central took an early lead with three runs in the first inning when sophomore Franklin Jennings drew a walk and stole second base. Junior Ian Glassman drove him in with a single and came around to score when senior Dominic Severino followed with a double to make it 2-0. Freshman Ryan Costello notched a third straight hit for CCSU in the inning with a single, bringing home Severino to make it 3-0.
Bryant began to chip away at the CCSU lead with a run in the third and fourth innings. Joseph Paparelli reached on a fielder's choice and moved to second after a walk. Jordan Mountford drove home Paparelli with a single to make it 3-1. Bryant cut the deficit to one in the fourth inning after John Mullen led off with a tripl and scored on a ground out by Robby Rinn.
The Bulldogs took the lead for good with a seven-run fifth inning. A two-run single by Cole Fabio and three-run homerun by Brandon Bingel highlighted the inning and gave starting pitcher Kyle Wilcox all the support he would need.
Bryant added two runs in the sixth inning and four more in the top of the ninth. The Blue Devils rounded out the scoring in the bottom of the ninth with two runs. Freshman Nick Plachno singled to begin a stretch of five straight CCSU batters reaching base. Senior Jeff Buck, senior Nick Coro and freshman John Lippincott recorded consecutive singles, with Coro and Lippincott each driving in a run to account for the final margin.
After allowing a single to freshman Mike Arman to lead off the third, Wilcox only allowed one more hit over his final six innings of work. He retired 15 straight at one point and picked up the win after pitching 8.0 innings, allowing three runs on five hits with a walk and two strikeouts.
Arman finished the day with two hits for CCSU. Sophomore Austin Salnitis started for the Blue Devils and struck out five over is 4.1 innings of work.
The teams continue the series on Saturday with a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m.
