QU Baseball Rallies vs. Siena to Save Season, Faces Monmouth on Friday Night for Title Berth

Friday, May 25

Staten Island, N.Y. / Richmond County Bank Ballpark

3:30 PM

Quinnipiac University

26-29

Siena

21-35

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Siena	0	0	0	3	1	1	0	1	0	0	6	15	1
Quinnipiac	0	0	0	1	0	1	1	0	3	1	7	20	1

QU Baseball Rallies vs. Siena to Save Season, Faces Monmouth on Friday Night for Title Berth

5/25/2018 8:01:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: QU Athletic Communications

Bruce Deckert | QU Athletic Communications

SCORE
Quinnipiac 7, Siena 6 — 10 innings

RECORDS — REGULAR SEASON
No. 2 seed Quinnipiac — 25-28, 16-8 MAAC
No. 4 seed Siena — 19-33, 14-10 MAAC

LOCATION
Richmond County Bank Ballpark — Staten Island, N.Y.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The season was teetering on the brink, but that didn't faze the Quinnipiac Bobcats on Friday in the third round of the MAAC Baseball Championship.

The Bobcats staged a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth to rescue their season and send the game to extra innings, and then finished the comeback when senior Ben Gibson crushed a game-winning double in the bottom of the 10th for a 7-6 victory over the Siena Saints at Richmond County Bank Ballpark in Staten Island, N.Y.

Freshman catcher Colton Bender's clutch single in the ninth inning evened the score and sent the game to extras.

The Bobcats, who had lost Thursday in their first game in the double-elimination tournament, won't have much time to bask in their thrilling triumph — they will play a second game on Friday, this one versus No. 1 seed Monmouth.

The loser will be out of the tournament, but the winner will advance to play Canisius on Saturday for the MAAC Championship crown.

Down 6-3, Quinnipiac began its ninth-inning rally quietly enough when sophomore second baseman Dylan Lutz was hit by a pitch. With one out, sophomore third baseman Evan Vulgamore singled and Lutz moved to second. Junior right fielder Liam Scafariello, who homered in the fourth inning, brought Lutz home with a single to right field.

Next came perhaps the key strategic move of the game — and the season.

With Scafariello on first base and Vulgamore on third, and one down, Bobcats Head Coach John Delaney put Scafariello (who runs well) in motion. The decision paid dividends when the hitter, junior center fielder Brian Moskey, hit a ground ball to shortstop. If Scafariello hadn't been running but had stayed put at first base, the result (with virtual certainty) would have been a game- and season-ending double play.

Instead, Moskey's groundout scored Vulgamore — and QU's deficit was only one run.

With Scafariello on second base and two outs, Bender recorded what might be the biggest hit of his career when his single to right field plated Scafariello and tied the game 6-6.

The game was scoreless until the fourth inning, but in the top of the fourth Siena scored three times on senior Joe Drpich's two-run homer to right field with no outs, followed by a double and a two-out RBI single. Drpich hit two home runs in his previous game to help the Saints defeat Marist on Thursday and stave off elimination.

Quinnipiac got on the board in the bottom of the fourth inning when, with one out, Scafariello hit a solo home run to center field on a full count after starting the at-bat 0-2. In his previous game, the 6-foot-4 slugger also hit a solo homer, in the Bobcats' loss to Canisius on Thursday.

Scafariello now has 15 home runs overall this season and postseason — second in the MAAC to Gibson, with 18 — and 31 in his Quinnipiac career, which is tied with Gibson for the Bobcats' Division I record for career home runs.

The Saints scored once in the top of the fifth to extend their lead to 4-1, thanks to back-to-back singles to open the inning and a two-out RBI single. Siena made it 5-1 in the top of the sixth, again on a two-out RBI single that followed a pair of singles.

But the Bobcats started to chip away, scoring one run apiece in the bottom of the sixth and seventh innings to draw within 5-3 — displaying some clutch two-out hitting of their own in each frame.

In the sixth, the Bobcats tallied once when junior shortstop Kevin Huscher's two-out single brought home Vulgamore, who had singled to lead off the inning (and advanced on Moskey's single). In the seventh, Lutz singled to right field, and with two outs Vulgamore stroked an RBI double to left center.

Siena added an unearned run after a leadoff walk in the top of the eighth, so when the ninth inning arrived, QU faced a 6-3 deficit — which turned out to be simply an opportunity for another dramatic finish in a season full of such outcomes.

Quinnipiac's bottom-of-the-ninth comeback, capped by Bender's equalizer, set the stage for Gibson's walk-off magic. Of course, his game-winning double wouldn't have been possible without Huscher's single to open the bottom of the 10th inning. Then, with one out, Lutz singled and Huscher advanced to second.

Next, Gibson stepped to the plate, and the first baseman delivered. Game over.

HIT PARADE, QUALITY FINISH AND A RECORD
Quinnipiac and Siena combined for a whopping 35 hits in this game, with QU accounting for 20. Vulgamore paced the attack with four hits, while Lutz, Moskey and Huscher had three apiece. Sophomore left fielder Andre Marrero and Scafariello had two hits apiece.

The irony of Gibson's game-winner is that it was his only hit of the game — he was 0-for-5 up until that point.

Senior closer Mike Davis (3-1) notched the win for QU with an efficient finish. A 6-foot-5 right-hander, Davis went 2.1 innings, struck out two and allowed one hit. Siena sophomore reliever Danny Hobbs (0-1) took the loss.

Meanwhile, junior pitcher Tyler Poulin — who appeared in relief versus Siena — broke Quinnipiac's Division I single-season strikeout record on Friday. Chris Gloor had held the record with 81 strikeouts in 2009. Poulin struck out four Siena batters in 2.2 innings and now has 84 this year.

A CAMPAIGN MARKED BY DRAMATIC COMEBACKS
The Bobcats' most recent ninth-inning magic came last week (on Thursday, May 17) when Moskey broke a 5-5 tie in the top of the ninth with a two-run double en route an 8-6 win over Rider that gave QU sole possession of first place in the MAAC standings.

The week before (on Friday, May 11) Scafariello hit a game-winning two-run homer in the top of the ninth inning that propelled QU to a 7-6 victory over Marist. The Bobcats had trailed 6-2 entering the ninth, but Ben Gibson hit a three-run dinger to close the gap before Scafariello provided the exclamation point. The win kept QU alone in first in the MAAC.

Earlier this season (on April 8), Scafariello and Gibson tag-teamed for some walk-off heroics in a home doubleheader sweep of Monmouth that stretched QU's MAAC record to 6-0. Each player furnished a game-winning single — Scafariello in the Bobcats' last at-bat in the seven-inning first game, and Gibson in the bottom of the 11th in the second game. The final score of each contest was 4-3.

And later that month (on April 24), senior Julius Saporito came up clutch with a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th inning to give Quinnipiac a come-from-behind 6-5 victory over nonconference foe Hartford.

NEXT UP
On Friday night, after a short break following QU's big victory over Siena earlier Friday, No. 2 seed Quinnipiac will face No. 1 seed Monmouth in the MAAC Baseball Championship at Richmond County Bank Ballpark in Staten Island, N.Y.

The loser will be out of the tournament, and the winner will advance to play Canisius on Saturday for the MAAC Championship title. For more details, go to the MAAC Baseball Championship home page. Every game of the MAAC Championship is being aired on ESPN+.

As the No. 2 seed, the Bobcats had a first-round bye, along with No. 1 seed Monmouth, so their victory over Siena was their second game in the double-elimination tournament. In their first game, the Bobcats lost 11-3 to Canisius on Thursday.

PLAYOFF NOTES
• Until Quinnipiac's first playoff game Thursday, sophomore second baseman Dylan Lutz hadn't played since April 8 due to an injury. In the Bobcats' two playoff games, Lutz is 4-for-10 with three runs. While he has manned second base in the playoffs, he played shortstop the first half of the season.

• Quinnipiac earned the No. 2 seed despite being picked to finish 8th in the MAAC Preseason Coaches' Poll. The top six teams in the 11-team league play in the MAAC Baseball Championship. Quinnipiac (16-8 MAAC) was in first place until the final weekend of the regular season, but the Monmouth Hawks (16-7 MAAC) ended up atop the conference by one-half game (their regular season finale was canceled due to rain). The Bobcats started 8-0 in the league and had sole possession of first place from the MAAC's opening weekend until the next-to-last weekend. Then they were in a three-way tie for first heading into their final regular season series. Before this year, the Bobcats' best MAAC season was a third-place finish (15-9) in 2015, which was John Delaney's first season as head coach.

• Three Quinnipiac sluggers — senior Ben Gibson, junior Liam Scafariello and sophomore Evan Vulgamore — finished 1-2-3 in home runs in the MAAC regular season. Gibson had 18 home runs in all games, both conference and nonconference. Scafariello was second with 13 homers, and Vulgamore was tied for third with 10. Only two other MAAC hitters had double-digit home runs. In conference games only, Gibson (11 HRs) was first, Scafariello (9) was second, and Vulgamore (8) was alone in third. In the nation, Gibson's 18 homers were tied for 8th, and he was tied for 7th in homers per game (0.35).

• Gibson established several Quinnipiac records this season. He holds the Bobcats' Division I records for single-season home runs (18), single-season RBI (53, second in the MAAC this year) and career home runs (31, tied with Scafariello). His 18 homers are tied for Quinnipiac's all-time single-season record, including the program's Division II history.

• Scafariello and Vulgamore were the only two players in the MAAC regular season to finish in the top 10 (in all games) in home runs, RBI and stolen bases. Scafariello had 13 home runs (second place), 42 RBI (seventh-most) and 10 stolen bases (tied for fifth-most). Vulgamore had 10 home runs (tied for third-most), 38 RBI (ninth-most) and 9 stolen bases (tied for sixth-most).