WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. (May 25, 2023) – The offense never really got going on Thursday, as the Sacred Heart University baseball team was held to just six hits in its second game at the Northeast Conference Championship, hosted at Heritage Financial Park. The fourth-seeded Pioneers now find their backs to the wall in the double-elimination tournament, following a 5-2 loss to top-seeded Central Connecticut State. Making just his fifth start of the year, senior right-hander Jake McDowell (Brookfield, Conn.) fired 5.2 innings of two-run ball in defeat for SHU.
 
Sacred Heart (26-29) will be right back at it in an elimination game on Thursday night at Heritage Financial Park. The Pioneers will square off with fifth-seeded LIU in a rematch of Wednesday's game, which saw SHU roll up a 23-2 victory.
 
CCSU (33-11) will play at noon on Friday in a winner's bracket game, against the winner of Thursday's 3 p.m. game, which features second-seeded Wagner and third-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson.
 
It was Sacred Heart which struck first on Thursday, with a run in the top of the second inning, on a leadoff home run to right by Ryan Donnelly (Fairfield, Conn.), his seventh of the season.
 
From there, the first half of the game was a pitcher's duel, as CCSU left-hander and NEC Pitcher of the Year Dominic Niman (11-2) matched McDowell out of the first-base dugout. Niman wound up piling up 14 strikeouts over seven innings of one-run ball, allowed three hits and walked two. McDowell's (0-2) final line included three strikeouts and three walks, as well as two runs on five hits, across 5.2 innings.
 
McDowell worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam by rolling up a double-play ball in the top of the first and then settled in from there. He retired the side in order in the second and third innings, worked around a one-out single in the fourth and stranded a two-out single in the fifth.
 
McDowell only ran back into trouble in the bottom of the sixth, as a single and a walk put runners at first and second with one out. After McDowell got the second out of the inning, the Pioneers turned to the bullpen and left-hander Michael Attonito (White Plains, N.Y.) with left-handed hitting Joe Rios due up. However, Attonito walked Rios to load the bases.
 
The inning deteriorated from there, as Michael Torniero reached on an infield single to tie the game and then Elliot Good put CCSU out front to stay by lacing a two-out, two-run single to left field. The fourth run of the inning came home two batters later when Dan Hussey was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
 
There wasn't much in it from there, as the two teams traded runs in the eighth to create the 5-2 final. SHU got an RBI single back through the middle by Justin Jordan (Darien, Conn.), but eventually left him stranded at second base. CCSU got an important insurance run in the bottom half, as Torniero singled on a hard comebacker and later scored on an RBI single to center by Brady Short. SHU got a baserunner in the ninth via a two-out error, but could get him no further than second base.