UNION, N.J. (May 3, 2024) – An optimist might say both teams rallied for a victory on Friday. A pessimist might say both teams blew a lead at Jim Hynes Baseball Stadium. Any way you slice it, nothing was decided on the first day of the battle for first place between the Sacred Heart University baseball team and Wagner, as the co-Northeast Conference leaders split a doubleheader on the campus of Kean University.
 
In the first game, SHU (25-20, 19-7 NEC) had a 3-1 lead in the fifth with right-handed ace Jake Babuschak (Jobstown, N.J.) on the mound, but Wagner battled back and walked things off on a David Melfi single to pick up a 4-3 (10 inn.) victory. In the nightcap, Wagner (22-23, 19-7 NEC) opened up a 5-1 lead through four innings, but Sacred Heart roared back for a 7-5 win in support of a lights-out relief effort from right-hander Jake McDowell (Brookfield, Conn.).
 
The two teams remain tied atop the NEC standings, but are now one-half game in front of LIU, which dropped its weekend opener at Merrimack to fall out of the first-place tie. At worst, the winner of Saturday's 7 p.m. series finale will exit the weekend with a share of first place and be one game clear in the battle for a first-round bye with just six games remaining.
 
Game 1: Wagner 4, Sacred Heart 3 (10 innings)
 
Wagner opened the day's scoring early, on a sacrifice fly from Diego Tavarez in the bottom of the first. SHU evened things up in the fourth with a sacrifice fly of its own, courtesy of Ronan Donohue (Melrose, Mass.). Tim McGuire (Portsmouth, R.I.) staked the visitors to a 3-1 lead in the fifth, when he lined a two-run double inside the line in right and into the corner. The Seahawks answered immediately though, when Henry Martinez drove a solo home run into the power alley in right-center, his first of the season.
 
With the game still tied in the ninth, each team got the leadoff man on in the final inning of regulation, but neither side could cash him in. SHU got a one-out baserunner in the top of the 10^th, but got him no further than first base. Wagner got a one-out double down the right-field line from Xavier Ulrich in the last of the 10^th.
 
The Seahawks would bring him around.
 
Left-hander Owen MacDonnell (Londonderry, N.H.) locked up Tavarez for the second out, but then Melfi pulled a game-winning single through the left side of the infield.
 
MacDonnell (0-4) was something of a hard-luck loser, as he had come on to start the eighth and was darn near unhittable for two innings before Wagner's 10^th-inning rally. The southpaw surrendered just the one run on three hits, walked nobody and struck out four. Earlier in the day, Babuschak logged seven innings of three-run, eight-hit ball. He also did not issue a walk and struck out five. It was the first walk-free game for SHU pitching since March 12, 2023, at Norfolk State.
 
The run in the 10^th made a winner out of right-hander Alec Burnett (2-2) for Wagner. He threw the ninth and 10^th innings without allowing a hit or a run, walked one and struck out four.
 
Game 2: Sacred Heart 7, Wagner 5
 
The tables would eventually turn in the nightcap, but first, Wagner built out a 5-1 lead. Ulrich had an RBI single in the first, while Chris Conniff had a sacrifice fly. Conniff added an RBI single in the third. In the fourth, Lukos Torres had an RBI infield single and Ulrich hit a sacrifice fly to drive home his second run of the game. The only early offense for SHU came when Zack Kovalchik (Archbald, Pa.) scored on a first-and-third play in the fourth.
 
Then, in the top of the fifth, the Wagner battery came undone. Sacred Heart had just one hit in the frame, but scored four runs anyway, via the following sequence: bases-loaded walk, wild pitch, passed ball, wild pitch. Just like that, the game was tied, 5-5, and the Pioneers had life.
 
It stayed that way until the top of the eighth, when the SHU bats struck for a two-run lead. Ronan Donohue worked a one-out walk and then a two-out throwing error by Ariv Camacho at shortstop allowed John Greene (Naugatuck, Conn.) to reach and prolonged the inning. Gavin Donohue made sure to make the error hurt, as he took a pitch the other way through the right side of the infield to plate his twin brother with the go-ahead run. Simonelli poured some salt on the wound with a line drive off the glove of the third baseman for an RBI single to make it 7-5.
 
The beneficiary of the late runs? That would be McDowell (2-2), who was nothing short of phenomenal out of the bullpen. He took over for a scuffling Joe Trombley (Watervliet, N.Y.) in the fourth, with nobody out, the bases loaded and one run already in. McDowell got out of the jam with only one further run scoring, and then simply pitched the rest of the game.
 
Without allowing a run.
 
Or a hit.
 
McDowell faced just 18 batters over six innings of scoreless, hitless relief, walked one and struck out five. After the Pios got him the lead, he retired six of seven and closed out the game with a called strike three against Albert Serrano. Given the stakes, it was arguably the most important pitching performance of SHU's season thus far.
 
Right-hander Andrew Stanley (1-1) was charged with the loss on the other side. He allowed three hits and the two runs against him were unearned, but he did himself no favors either. Of the 17 batters he faced, Stanley managed to walk two, hit a batter and throw three wild pitches. He struck out four.