Purple Knights Edged By Dowling, 4-3, In ECC Tournament Winners' Bracket Action

Shirley, N.Y.-The University of Bridgeport baseball team lost a hard-fought, 4-3 decision against the second-seeded Dowling College Golden Lions in the winners' bracket of the 2016 East Coast Conference Championship Tournament on Friday afternoon on the Golden Lions' home field.  The fourth-seeded Purple Knights are now 24-21-1 overall, and DC ups its overall record to 26-22.  Bridgeport must now win three straight games to capture the ECC crown; while Dowling, the only remaining undefeated team, needs only one victory in two possible games over the next two days.

Bridgeport will now face the third-seeded Molloy College Lions at 12 noon on Saturday in an elimination game that was moved from Friday afternoon to tomorrow due to rain on Long Island.  The winner of the UB/Molloy game will face Dowling at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday.  If Dowling falls in Saturday's second game, a winner-take-all conference championship game will take place at 12 noon on Sunday.

On Friday, Dowling scored three runs in the third inning and added an important insurance run in the sixth.

The Purple Knights got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the eighth inning on an RBI groundout by sophomore Jose Negron (New Haven, Conn.) that plated junior Justin Carey (Amherst, Mass.), who tripled.

UB scored two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth when senior Alynado Rodriguez (Bronx, N.Y.) hit a two-run home run, his seventh homer of 2016.  Rodriguez led all Bridgeport hitters on the afternoon going 3-for-4 at the plate.