UNIONDALE, N.Y. (May 12, 2022) – Despite three Mavericks recording an RBI, the No. 3 seeded Mercy College baseball team dropped a 4-3 decision to No. 2 seeded Queens College in their opening game of the East Coast Conference (ECC) Baseball Championship on Thursday afternoon at Mitchel Field.
In a ceremony prior to the game, junior Nolan Giblin (Syracuse, N.Y./Jamesville Dewitt) was presented the ECC Elite 19 Award for baseball. The award is given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA on teams competing in the ECC Championship.
The Mavericks (21-24-1) fall in their first ECC Championship appearance since 2010, while the Knights (25-15) have won three of the four meetings against Mercy this season. Mercy will now play top seed Molloy tomorrow at 10 a.m. at Mitchel Field needing a win to advance. If the Mavericks defeat Molloy they would play the loser of Queens/STAC at 4 p.m.
Senior Nikko Liguori (Branford, Conn./Franklin Pierce University) went 2-for-4 with an RBI and freshman Nathan Rodriguez (Hamilton, N.J./Hamilton West) went 2-for-2 with a run. Sophomore Jared Hernandez (Moca, P.R./Friends University) went 1-for-3 with a run and graduate student Robert Wootten (Ardsley, N.Y./Westchester CC) went 1-for-4. Freshman Jaden Caballero (Newburgh, N.Y./Newburgh Free Academy) and Giblin each had an RBI. Freshman Scott Scheppy (Newburgh, N.Y./Newburgh Free Academy) pitched a complete game with four runs allowed and seven strikeouts to take the loss.
Queens was led by Jayson Rodopoulos who went 3-for-4 with two RBI and a home run. Rob Backus pitched seven innings with three runs allowed to earn the win and Dylan Hughes pitched two shutout innings to earn the save.
Mercy broke through with the game's first two runs in the top of the third to take a 2-0 lead. Rodriguez and Hernandez recorded back-to-back singles before senior Ryan Saltzman (Old Bethpage, N.Y./Plainview Old Bethpage JFK) sacrificed them over to second and third. Liguori then singled to center field, scoring Rodriguez to make it 1-0. Caballero later plated Hernandez on a groundout to give Mercy a 2-0 lead.
Queens tied the game in the bottom of the inning on a Rodopoulos home run and a Matt Filip RBI double.
The Knights later took the lead in the bottom of the fourth on a Rodopoulos RBI single to right field, making it 3-2. A Juan De La Rosa home run in the fifth gave Queens a 4-2 lead after five innings.
Mercy inched closer with a run in the sixth to make it 4-3. Liguori led off the inning with a single and later scored on a Giblin RBI groundout to get the Mavericks within one, 4-3. Wootten followed with a double but a strikeout ended the inning with the tying run at second.
The Mavericks were unable to plate a run in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, giving Queens the win.
Mercy had six hits and no errors and Queens had nine hits and no errors.
