Chargers Baseball Drop CACC Contest To Caldwell College
Courtesy of Matt McLagan, Caldwell College SID
Blauvelt, NY (5/1/07) Freshman Adric
Saxon (Coral Springs, FL/Broward CC) hit a single in the bottom of
the eighth that brought home fellow freshman Omar Velazquez
(Astoria, NY/Long Island City) and broke a 7-7 tie to give the
Caldwell College baseball team an 8-7 victory over Dominican
College in a Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference game Tuesday
afternoon at Smith Field. The win clinches at least a tie of the
CACC regular-season title for the Cougars, who are 22-10 overall
and 11-4 in the conference. The Chargers drop to 16-16, 7-6 CACC
with the loss.
Dominican's Yordis Veras (East Elmhurst,
NY) put the Chargers up 1-0 after leading off the game
with a home run. The Cougars quickly answered with a home run of
their own, as freshman Doug Hilgenberg (Flemington, NJ hit a
three-run shot in the bottom of the second. Freshman Raymond Keelan
(Barnegat, NJ) also drove in a run in the inning with a single to
make it 4-1 Cougars. Dominican cut the deficit to 4-3 with a solo
home run by Tom Keegan (Dickson City, PA) in the
top of the third and an RBI double by Brian Smith (Stony
Point, NY) in the top of the fourth. But the Cougars had
another big inning in the bottom of the fourth, with Hilgenberg
leading off with his second homer of the game and third of the
season. Later in the fourth, Saxon singled home a pair of runs to
lift Caldwell to a 7-3 advantage.
But the defending CACC champion Chargers would not quit, cutting
the deficit to 7-5 with Veras' second homer of the
day, a two-run shot in the top of the fifth. Then in the seventh,
after Jose Escalera (Bronx, NY) plated a run with
a sacrifice fly to make it 7-6 Cougars, Smith was
hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to tie the game at 7-7.
Freshman pitcher Robert Casal (Howard Beach, NY) ended the threat,
striking out the next batter to keep the game tied.
Casal retired the side in order in the top of the eighth, setting
up Saxon's heroics in the bottom half of the inning. Velazquez
walked to lead off the inning and later advanced to third on
Keelan's one-out double to centerfield. Saxon stepped up and drove
in his third run of the day with a single to right for an 8-7 lead.
Casal again sat all three batters down in the ninth for his eighth
victory of the season.
This is the second time the Cougars have earned at least a share
of the CACC regular-season title, as the 2003 squad also finished
atop the conference standings that year. Caldwell can wrap up the
CACC crown outright with a win over Post University on Friday or a
loss by Wilmington College in one of its final two conference
games.