Corkum tosses three-hitter, Purple Knights split with Merrimack in NE-10 baseball twinbill
COLCHESTER, Vt. - Freshman Will Corkum (Ipswich, Mass./Ipswich) did not yield an earned run while spinning a three-hitter in the opener of a Northeast-10 Conference Northeast Division baseball doubleheader on Saturday, helping Saint Michael's College down Merrimack College, 5-1, before dropping the nightcap, 8-2, on Doc Jacobs Field.
Now 8-18 overall and 2-7 in the league, the Purple Knights were nearly the beneficiaries of another stellar outing in game two, as junior Andrew Kelley (Lincoln, N.H./Lin-Wood) carried a three-hit shutout into the seventh prior to the Warriors rallying. Merrimack is 15-18 and 2-6. The squads square off again tomorrow for a single game at 1 p.m.
Corkum yielded three singles in nine innings, striking out six while allowing two runners reach third base. Sophomore Chris Puliafico (Sharon, Mass./Sharon) was 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI, classmate Nick Nelson (Spofford, N.H./Keene) went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a triple, and senior Chadwick Estey (New Haven, Vt./Mount Abraham Union) had two hits, among them a triple. He has 95 career hits. Freshman Nicky Elderton (Shelburne, Vt./Rice Memorial) walked twice, and sophomore Tyler Wild (Quaker Hill, Conn./Saint Bernard School) stole two bases.
Three different Merrimack batters had a hit, while junior Mike Laracy (Weymouth, Mass./Weymouth), the first of four pitchers, was saddled with the loss after surrendering three runs - two earned - on six hits in three frames.
The Purple Knights produced four two-out runs, as the hosts plated single runs in each of the first three innings, the fifth and the seventh. Puliafico's two-out RBI single in the opening stanza broke the stalemate before freshman Don McGuirl (Warwick, R.I./Saint Sebastian's School) had a one-out run-scoring knock in the second.
Estey singled home a two-out run in the third before a trio of Saint Michael's errors allowed Merrimack to score in the fifth, making it 3-1. Nelson responded in the home half by sending a triple just over the right fielder's head with two out, plating Elderton, before he also singled in the final run with two out in the seventh.
In game two, Kelley took the loss after allowing four runs on five hits in 6.1 innings, having blanked the Warriors heading into the seventh. Sophomore Corey Livingston (Hartford, Conn./East Catholic) was 2-for-4, and classmate Alec Tice (Chelmsford, Mass./Chelmsford) hit his third home run of the season.
Freshman John Pastyrnak (Bristol, Conn./Bristol Eastern) was 3-for-5 with two runs for the visitors, while freshman Joe Carnevale (East Providence, R.I./East Providence) allowed one earned run in six-plus innings, striking out four for the victory. Sophomore Alek Morency (Nashua, N.H./Nashua North) fanned four during a three-inning save.
With two down in the first, Tice drove a pitch to straightaway center field, where the ball hit the base of the fence, but the center fielder carried over the wall. By the time the Warrior returned to the field of play and retrieved the baseball, Tice was rounding third en route to his second inside-the-park home run of the season.
Kelley yielded only three singles while heading into the seventh with a 1-0 lead before Merrimack scored four runs on three hits. Livingston's RBI knock in the bottom portion brought his team within 4-2, but the visitors tacked on four more runs thanks to four hits in the eighth.
