EDISON, NJ - The #5 seed Northampton baseball team suffered a pair of losses, 11-6 and 14-4, on Friday afternoon to #4 seed Middlesex College, and saw their season come to an end in the opening round of the Region playoffs, falling 2-0 in the best of three playoff series to the Colts.
"Not the way we wanted things to go today. Tough way to lose," explained Spartans Head Coach
Adrian Yaguez, "Disappointing to see our season end the way it did for our team. Baseball can teach you a lot of things, especially when you fall short, like we did today. I feel for our sophomores and hopeful that our returners can take something from this feeling and use it as a positive going forward. We don't have much of a choice."Â
GAME ONE - Lost 11-6
The Spartans jumped ahead, 3-0, in game one when
Matthew Tankred (East Greenville, PA/Southern Lehigh) hit a solo home run in the top of the second inning and
Kyle Stoner (Burlington Township (NJ)/Burlington Township (NJ)) came through with a two run double in the top of the third inning.
Middlesex answered in the bottom of the third inning with 6 runs behind an RBI single, grand slam home run and RBI double, to chase Spartans starter
Juan Cruz (Bethlehem, PA/Liberty).
The Spartans bullpen behind
Ben Mostosky (Saylorsburg, PA/Pleasant Valley),
Ben Warner (Alexandria, VA/Alexandria City (VA)) and
Sam Erschen (Northampton, PA/Northampton) kept the game in reach but lack of timely hitting with runners on base kept the Spartans in check as the Colts were able to grab the game one victory.
Matthew Tankred (East Greenville, PA/Southern Lehigh) was 1-4 with a solo home run and 3 RBI and
Drew Mulligan (Philadelphia, PA/Archbishop Carroll) was 2-3 with a double.
Kyle Stoner (Burlington Township (NJ)/Burlington Township (NJ)) was 1-4 with 2 RBI and
Max Landis (Bethlehem, PA/Liberty) was 3-3 as the Spartans collected 9 hits.
GAME TWO - Lost 14-4
Kyle Stoner (Burlington Township (NJ)/Burlington Township (NJ)) was 1-2 with a solo home run and
Aiden Pearson (Newtown Square, PA/Marple Newtown) was 1-3 with an RBI as the Spartans were only able to register 2 hits in the season ending loss.
Jared Diefenbach (Stewartsville, NJ/Phillipsburg (NJ)) (5-2) took the loss on the mound for the Spartans, allowing 10 hits and 5 earned runs, with 3 strikeouts.
The Spartans end the season with a mark of 32-19.
Middlesex College improves to 37-15 overall and advances to the Region 19 final four next week at Rutgers-Camden.
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