Senior Josh Desai (Shrewsbury, Mass.) pitched a complete game five hitter as the Suffolk University Baseball defeated five-time defending champion St. Joseph's College 3-2 on Saturday afternoon in the 2015 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) semifinals.
Suffolk opened up the scoring earlier as freshman Brady Chant (Warwick, R.I.) singled to open the game and would then advance on a sacrifice bunt. Junior Jon Lapolla (Providence, R.I.) knocked home the game's first run as he singled up the middle to plate Chant. With two outs, sophomore Luke Ronchi (Randolph, N.J.) reached on an infield error that allowed Lapolla to score making it 2-0 Suffolk.
In the second Suffolk would add another run as senior Adam Johnson (Georgetown, Mass.) singled to right with one out. After a sacrifice bunt by sophomore BJ Neil (Lynnfield, Mass.), Chant would deliver his second hit of the game scoring Johnson for the 3-0 lead.
St. Joseph's would answer with one of their own in the third inning when sophomore Max McCoomb (South Berwick, Me.) doubled to lead off the inning. He would come around to score later in the inning as junior Taylor Reuillard (Biddeford, Me.) bounced into a fielder's choice.
The Monks would hold things tight into the seventh when they were able to cut their deficit to a run. Junior Scott Betts (Peabody, Mass.) opened the inning as he ground ball was botched allowing a baserunner with no outs. He would advance up two bases on back to back groundouts and would come around to score on McCoomb's second hit of the ball game. After a passed ball push McCoomb up to scoring position, sophomore Taylor Black (Cardiff By the Sea, Calif.) singled to center. McCoomb would be waived around third but the throw in from Chant would gun him down at the plate preserving the Suffolk lead.
Desai would retire six of the final seven hitters he faced as the lone baserunner was on an infield error. He improves to a 5-3 mark on the season with the victory allowing just five hits over nine innings of work while allowing just one earned run and punching out three hitters.
Senior Dan Meeken (Marshfield, Mass.) was the tough luck loser for the Monks. Meeken went all nine innings as well allowing just two earned runs on five hits. He struck out six while issuing no walks. At one point Meeken had retired 19 consecutive hitters until a single by senior JC Collette (Amesbury, Mass.) put him back out of the stretch.
Following their defeat the top seeded Monks would be ousted from the tournament by second seed Johnson & Wales 4-2 in Saturday evening's elimination game.
Third seed Suffolk will now take on Johnson & Wales University in Sunday's championship game beginning at 12:00pm at historic Holman Stadium in Nashua.
Suffolk defeated the Wildcats 7-5 on Thursday evening in the quarterfinal round.
Sunday's winner will earn an automatic qualifier bid into the 2015 NCAA Division III Tournament. The New England Regional championship will be hosted by the ECAC and held at Whitehouse Field in Harwich, MA starting on May 13.