West Hartford, CT - The Stony Brook Seawolves (26-18, 11-7 America East) behind an impressive outing from senior Brian Witkowski scored a sweep of the Hartford baseball (12-29, 4-12 AE) team in two games on Saturday. The Seawolves won the first game by a 7-2 score and shutout the Hawks 16-0 in the second. Witkowski finished the game going 5-for-5 at the plate with six RBI and seven runs scored. All five hits went for extra bases, two home runs, two doubles and a triple.
Ben Sobocinski suffered the loss for Hartford. The senior started and went five innings allowing six earned runs on eight hits with only two strikeouts. Mike Thatcher pitched the final two innings for the Hawks. He allowed a single run on one hit, a home run, facing just seven total batters in the game. At the plate. Andy Drexel provided the only offense for Hartford, a two run home run in the sixth inning. The Hawks finished with just four hits off of Tyler Johnson who pitched a complete game for his fifth win of the season.
Stony Brook got on the board early as Witkowski and Chad Marshall used the first two pitches to score the first run of the game. Witkowski opened the game with a first pitch triple to deep center field and was knocked in on the next pitch when Marshall singles to left field.
Witkowski then scored the second run of the game, knocking his first of two home runs over the right center field fence. The Hawks threatened in the with the bases loaded in the second inning and only one out, but Seawolves starter Johnson struck out Matt Walker and forced Andrew Siano into a groundout.
Stony Brook added two runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth to take a 6-0 lead. The two runs in the fourth came after two-straight walks to begin the inning. Both runs would eventually score on sacrifice flies from Chad Rebecca and WItkowski. The two runs in the fifth were made possible by a single swing of the bat for Rob Dyer who knocked both in on a home run to left center.
Witkowski then gave the Seawolves a 7-0 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth when he knocked his second home run of the game, scoring his third RBI, to left field.
The Hawks only offense came by way of a home run, the fourth of the game for either team. Drexel sent his team leading sixth home run over the left field fence, scoring Brady Stouffer who single to lead off the inning.
In the second game, the Seawolves put the game out of reach with a five run sixth inning before scoring eight runs in the final three innings to guarantee the victory. Five Stony Brook players finished with multiple RBI in the second game. Besides three from Witkowski, Rob Dyer and Michael Stephen also had three RBI, while Pat Cantwell and Chad Rebecca each added two RBI.
Pitching his first complete game of the season for Stony Brook, Miike Errigo allowed only three hits from Hartford. Errigo finished with five strikeouts and no walks, facing four batters over the minimum. He is no2 4-3 on the season.
Hartford's only hits in the game were singles from Siano and Jon Ricco and a double from Simon Kudernatsch. On the mound, Weston Szymanski suffered his sixth loss of the season. He allowed eight earned runs on 13 hits with six strikeouts and two walks. WIth his six strikeouts today, Szymanski stands in fifth all-time for career strikeouts with 153 total. Matt Govoni and Brendan Floyd saw relief time on the mound with Govoni pitching two innings and Floyd one.
The Hawks and Seawolves will close out the four-game series with a Mother's Day doubleheader, scheduled to begin with a seven inning game at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 10.
