Baseball Overpowered at No. 10/11 Tufts Thursday

MEDFORD, Mass.- The Eastern Nazarene College baseball team endured a 23-2 setback at nationally-ranked Tufts Thursday afternoon in non-conference action.

The Lions slip to 11-18-2 on the season with the loss while the Jumbos, ranked 10th in the NCBWA/D3Baseball.com poll and No. 11 in the Collegiate Baseball poll, improve to 22-5-1 overall with the win.

Devin Haberstumpf (Forest Hills, N.Y.) paced the club with two hits in the contest. Nick Story (Gilbert, Ariz.) posted a base knock and drove in one RBI on the day. Steven Pesce (Harrison, N.Y.) finished with one hit and one run scored.

The hosts opened up a 6-0 lead with six runs in the bottom of the second inning. Mike McLaughlin landed a two-run single and Eric Schnepf, Will Shackelford, Oscar Kutch, and Tommy O'Hara all recorded RBI base knocks in the frame.

The visitors got on the board with a run in the top of the third to slice the deficit to 6-1. Pesce scampered home from third base as Haberstumpf advanced to second on a failed pick-off attempt at first.

Tufts tacked on three runs in the home half of the third to widen the gap to 9-1 and chalked up six runs in the fourth inning to stretch its advantage to 15-1.

Eastern Nazarene plated one run in the sixth to trim the margin to 15-2. With two runners aboard, Story scorched a single back up the middle to drive in John Greenlee (San Marcos, Calif.) from second base.

The Jumbos added five runs in the seventh and three runs in the eighth frame to cap off the convincing win.

Daniel Rivera (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) started on the mound and tossed 1.2 innings while fanning three. Ryan Spina (Selden, N.Y.) hurled two innings of relief in his sixth appearance out of the bullpen. Josue Basilis (Bronx, N.Y.) tossed 2.2 innings in his second pitching outing of the spring. Story worked 1.2 relief innings in his second pitching appearance on the year.

Up next, Eastern Nazarene returns home to play two games against Western New England April 28.