Baseball Falls In Opener Of ECC Tournament To Dowling, 14-7

Brookhaven, N.Y.-The University of Bridgeport baseball team got off to a good start taking a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on an RBI single by junior Eric Schlitter (Guilford, Conn.), but it was all downhill from the from there, as the second-seed Purple Knights were defeated by the third-seeded Dowling College Golden Lions, 14-7, in the opening game of the 2011 East Coast Conference Championship Tournament.  UB now must battle through the losers' bracket in the double-elimination tournament and will be back in action at 9:00 a.m. on Friday top-seeded Molloy who lost 4-1 to number-four seed, St. Thomas Aquinas on Thursday.  With the loss, the Purple Knights are now 28-13 overall.  Dowling evens its season mark at 23-23.

Schlitter had a fine day at the plate with three hits and three runs batted in, and the Purple Knights did not go down without a fight, as they scored one run in the bottom of the eighth inning and four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Senior Peter Barrows (Old Saybrook, Conn.) and Stefan Wagner (Freemont, N.H.) plus junior Matt Ranaudo (Milford, Conn.) also drove in runs for UB on the afternoon.

The Golden Lions scored two runs in the top of the second inning to take a lead which they never relinquished and broke the game wide-open with six runs in the top of the fourth.

Junior Matt Batolomei (Stratford, Conn.), who is now 5-3 on the season, started and took the loss for UB. Senior Gabriel Duran started and picked up the victory for Dowling.