Felician Athletics - 4/30/08 BASEBALL - DiBenedetti Lifts Felician To 3-2 Victory

BROOKVILLE, N.Y. – Junior Vinnie DiBenedetti (Forked River, NJ) hit a tie-breaking triple in the top of the 10th inning as Felician College defeated host Long Island University-C.W. Post, 3-2, in non-conference baseball action Wednesday afternoon on the C.W. Post campus. The Golden Falcons improved to 4-1 this season in extra-inning games.

Felician’s Hector Bello (Miami, FL) walked to start the 10th and advanced to second on an errant pickoff throw. One out later, right-handed hitting DiBenedetti lined a ball into the right-centerfield gap for his Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference-leading seventh triple of the season. DiBenedetti was later thrown out attempting to score on a fly ball, but reliever John Calise (Staten Island, NY) (3-2) pitched a perfect bottom of the 10th to secure the win.

The Golden Falcons (23-20) left 11 runners on base and had three others thrown out on the basepaths, but starting pitcher Jeff Calabrese (Freehold, NJ) held the Pioneers at bay. In a career-high eight innings of work, he allowed one earned run on seven hits. He departed with the game tied at 2-2 after C.W. Post scored on a Felician error in the bottom of the eighth. Calise worked around a walk in a scoreless ninth.

The game’s first three runs all scored on sacrifice flies. Mickey Zudonyi (Holmdel, NJ) and DiBenedetti delivered for Felician in the second and third innings, respectively, and Tim Sylvester (Farmingdale, NY) got the Pioneers on the scoreboard in the fifth. DiBenedetti finished 3 for 5 with a run and two RBI, and teammate Marcos Torres (Miami, FL) went 2 for 5 with a double. CWP’s Steve Algarroba (Astoria, NY) was 2 for 3. Brett Belsky (Brooklyn, NY), the fifth Pioneer pitcher of the day, worked the 10th and was tagged with the loss.

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