Junior Alex McCormick picked up his sixth win of the year with eight dominant innings on the mound for the Skyhawks.

2010 NE-10 BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
#4 Stonehill Aces Out #2 Franklin Pierce, 5-1

Skyhawks ride second-straight dominant pitching performance, back-to-back homers into winner's bracket semifinal versus #6 Merrimack Saturday at noon

RINDGE, N.H. (May 7, 2010) – Fourth-seeded Stonehill College, ranked fourth in this week's National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) East Regional poll, got another dominant performance on the mound and a pair of home runs from the middle of the lineup for the second-straight night to post a 5-1 victory over second-seeded and host Franklin Pierce University, ranked 25^th in the NCBWA Division II poll and 26^th in the Collegiate Baseball magazine rankings, on day two of the 2010 Northeast-10 Conference baseball championship at Dr. Arthur and Martha Pappas Field tonight.

Stonehill (27-16, 17-9 NE-10) advances to tomorrow's winner's bracket semifinal where it will face sixth-seeded Merrimack College for a berth in Sunday's championship round at noon. Merrimack eliminated third-seeded University of New Haven in today's second game, 4-0. Franklin Pierce (34-13-1, 19-6-1 NE-10) will look to avoid elimination tomorrow when it battles top-seeded and 13^th-ranked Southern Connecticut State University at 3:30 p.m.

Junior righthander Alex McCormick (Weymouth, Mass./Cardinal Spellman), voted a third team All-Northeast-10 selection by the NE-10 head coaches earlier this week, out-dueled Franklin Pierce junior righthander Jose Macias (Bronx, N.Y./Dewitt Clinton), the NE-10 Pitcher of the Year, to lead Stonehill to its ninth-straight win. McCormick (6-3) scattered five hits (none for extra bases) over his eight innings of work, yielding just the one earned run with seven strikeouts and a walk.

Junior Brenden Shepard drove in the Skyhawks first run, finishing 2-for-4, and fired a perfect ninth on the mound. (PHOTO BY Richard Orr)

Junior Brenden Shepard (Boxford, Mass./Masconomet) sparked the Skyhawks offense as he hit 2-for-4 with an RBI. He also closed out the win by striking out two of the three batters he faced in a perfect ninth inning on the mound.

Senior Ryan Healey (Lynn, Mass./Lynn English) and junior Angelo Bruno (Norwalk, Conn./Norwalk) both hit 1-for-4 with solo home runs that broke the game open in the eighth. Senior Mitch Davis (Bow, N.H./Bow) and sophomore Rich McHugh (Pembroke, Mass./Thayer Academy) chipped in with a double and triple, respectively.

Macias (8-1) suffered his first loss of the season, allowing three runs, two earned, on six hits with nine strikeouts and three walks over seven innings.

Sophomore Mike Dowd (East Bridgewater, Mass./Cardinal Spellman) paced the Franklin Pierce offense as he hit 1-for-4 with an RBI. Junior Eric Pearson (Webster, N.H./Merrimack Valley) batted 1-for-2 with a walk and run scored.

Stonehill struck first in the fifth when senior Shane Franz (Cazenovia, N.Y./Cazenovia) drew a leadoff walk, reached second on a Macias balk and advanced to second on a groundout before scoring on a single through the right side by Shepard. The Skyhawks doubled their lead in the sixth when McHugh led off with a triple to right and scored on a wild pitch on ball four to Bruno.

Franklin Pierce got a run back in the bottom of the sixth as Pearson drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on back-to-back bunts before coming home on a groundout to third by Dowd. Stonehill regained its two-run lead in its next at bat when senior Rob Von Stein (Trumbull, Conn./Trumbull) reached on a fielder's choice and later scored on a two-out single up the middle from junior Scott Hackett (Bangor, Maine/Bangor) in the seventh.

The Skyhawks broke the game open when Bruno and Healey greeted Franklin Pierce senior reliever Heath Wasylow (Rehoboth, Mass./Dighton-Rehoboth) by belting two of his first four pitches out of the ballpark to lead off the eighth. Bruno blasted his team-leading tenth home run of the season (2^nd NE-10) to left center, while Healey added his third of the year to right. It marked the second-straight night the Skyhawks' number three and four hitters went deep.

McCormick worked around a leadoff single in the eighth, striking out the last two batters he faced, before Shepard fanned two of the three he faced while closing out the win in the ninth.