NEWPORT, R.I. (Sunday, May 11, 2025) -- 10th-ranked and top-seeded Salve Regina University baseball swept three games in the 2025 NEWMAC Championships with the final coming against third-seeded MIT, 6-5, as graduate student
Tyler Petrosino delivered a walk-off single to left center with the bases loaded to plate
Shane Williams, who had opened the bottom of the tenth tripling to center, with the winning run. The Seahawks (32-7) win their 17th consecutive game, tying a program record set in 2023, and earn the NEWMAC automatic qualifier to the NCAA Division III Baseball Championships. This marks the sixth straight year the Seahawks will appear in the NCAA postseason. Last year as an at-large invitee, Salve Regina not only won their first-ever regional (sweeping three games at Cortland), but the Seahawks also came within three victories of a national championship after taking the Salisbury Super Regional in two and winning the first two at the College World Series in Eastlake, Ohio.
The Seahawks will learn their regional destination in the NCAA Selection Show which starts at noon on Monday, May 12 -
https://www.ncaa.com/sports/baseball/d3
Today's championship game was a back-and-forth affair on a windy Reynolds Field with plenty of sunshine on Mother's Day. After Seahawk starter
Kyle Carozza got a 1-2-3 in the top of the first, Salve Regina opened the scoring in the bottom half as
Christian Homa singled with one out and moved to third on
Evan O'Rourke's double.
Shane Williams lifted a deep fly ball to left field and Homa came home with the first run.
The Engineers (19-20) tagged Carozza with three straight hits and tied the score to start the second inning.
Zev Moore singled to right center and
Reed Tubbs went in the same direction with a double.
Malachi Soqui singled through the left side to score Moore and move Tubbs to third. After Carozza K'd the next batter, MIT head coach
Andy Barlow, who's retiring after 22 seasons with the Engineers, called for a squeeze play and
Tyler Godfrey executed it perfectly for the 2-1 lead.
Salve Regina retook the lead with three in the bottom of the second.
Shea Donovan worked a one-out walk and stole second on a swinging strike three. With two outs,
Grady Schopps delivered a clutch single to center field to score Donovan standing up. Schopps stole second and
Brandon Grover beat out an infield single to move Schopps to third before Grover swiped his 10th bag of the season. Homa followed with a two-run double to left center as Schopps and Grover crossed the plate for a 4-2 Seahawk advantage.
MIT, which had leadoff hits or at least leadoff runners in the second through seventh innings, had a promising start to the fifth when top of the order
Teddy Schoenfeld led off with a single to left center. Reliever
Joe DeRienzo got the pitcher's best friend -- a double-play grounder -- started by
Wil McCarthy at third to Homa at second and to Petrosino at first to quiet the threat. But DeRienzo hit the next Engineer,
CJ McCarthy, who was on board when
Zev Moore screamed a home run into the left field bullpen area against a strong gust. It was the team-leading 10th round-tripper for Moore, and the 47th for the league-leading Engineers, that tied the score at 4-4.
Facing elimination for the fourth time in the tournament, the Engineers took a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning when Soqui's selective eye watched a four-pitch walk off new reliever
Jason Arrigo. After a fly out to right field, Soqui shuffled to second on a wild pitch and then to third on a grounder to Homa. With two outs,
Owen Malone fought off a tough pitch to drop an RBI single into right field.
Arrigo was not out of danger yet. After hitting Schoenfeld with a pitch, Arrigo let one fly past Donovan as both Malone and Schoenfeld move up a base. The Seahawk righty ended the jam with a strikeout looking.
Meanwhile,
Phil Hood, the third Engineer pitcher of the game, saw just three Seahawk batters in each of his first two frames, the sixth and seventh. Petrosino had a one-out base hit in the sixth off Hood, but was erased on an inning-ending double play, Tubbs-to-Moore-to-Godfrey (6-4-3). Hood retired the top of the order quickly in the seventh.
James Tobin, who came on in relief in the Engineer seventh with two on and two out, got the first three batters he faced before Schoenfeld singled with two outs in the eighth and
John Spivey doubled to put runners at second and third. Tobin came up big with a strikeout to keep the Engineers from adding to their lead.
In the Seahawk eighth, Williams singled down the right field line and McCarthy sacrificed him to second. After Hood recorded a strikeout for two down, Williams stole third. Donovan earned his third base on balls of the game to keep the offense going. Petrosino lifted a high pop fly behind the second base bag that dropped in for a base hit and Williams tied the score at 5-5 while Donovan reached third. The go-ahead run stood 90 feet away but Hood induced a grounder to Malone at third to send the game into the ninth deadlocked.
Tobin tossed a ground out to McCarthy to start the ninth before Tubbs singled to center. After Soqui's grounder to Schopps moved Tubbs to second,
Andrew Wertz entered to face
John Dwyer. The Engineer catcher was 0-for-4 before his at-bat against the new righty reliever, but he whistled a line drive back to the mound and Wertz' momentum after delivering the pitch positioned his glove perfectly to make the grab for the final out and preserving the tie.
Hood once again faced the top of the Seahawk lineup and set them down 1-2-3 in the ninth.
Wertz worked the tenth and got the first out on a fly to Williams in right. The next two Engineers reached on infield errors before a Schopps-to-Homa-to-Petrosino (6-4-3) double play gave the Seahawks another crack at a walk-off victory.
Williams blasted a deep fly ball to center field leading off the tenth for the Seahawks and made it to third representing the championship-winning run. MIT elected to intentionally walk the next two batters -- McCarthy and pinch-hitter
Matthew Neal -- to load the bases with none out. With the infield in, and the outfield relatively shallow, Donovan ripped a line drive that Godfrey speared at first base while Neal scampered back to the bag. On a 3-2 pitch with one out,
Tyler Petrosino laced a single into left center and
Shane Williams scored to start the Seahawk celebration.
QUOTING HEAD COACH ERIC CIRELLA '05
"Hats off to the seniors who held us together all year. They've done just accomplished almost everything in the last 4-5 years. It wasn't our cleanest game but we did just enough to walk it off in the 10th inning. Now we have a few days to clean up some things in preparation for a regional." -- Seahawk head coach Eric Cirella '05
INSIDE THE MATCHUP
Final: Salve Regina 6, MIT 5 (10 innings)
Records: Salve Regina (32-7, 13-3 NEWMAC), MIT (19-20, 11-5 NEWMAC)
History: Salve Regina earned its first win ever against MIT in baseball before completing a sweep in Newport last year. The Engineers won the first meeting in 1989, then swept two in Tampa, Florida, in 2005. Then in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2012, the Engineers won 14-2. Last year was the first ever visit to Newport for an MIT baseball team. Salve Regina won both in seven-inning Mercy Rule decisions, 16-6 and 11-0. MIT leads the all-time series, 5-4, but Salve Regina has won four of the last five meetings.
SUMMARY
- B1 - Shane Williams flied out to lf, SAC, RBI; Christian Homa scored. | SEAHAWKS 1, ENGINEERS 0
- T2 - Malachi Soqui singled through the left side, RBI; Riley Tubbs advanced to third; Zev Moore scored. Tyler Godfrey grounded out to p, SAC, bunt, RBI; M. Soqui advanced to second; R. Tubbs scored. | ENGINEERS 2, SEAHAWKS 1
- B2 - Grady Schopps singled to center field, RBI; Shea Donovan scored. Christian Homa doubled to left center, 2 RBI; Brandon Grover scored; G. Schopps scored. | SEAHAWKS 4, ENGINEERS 2
- T5 - Zev Moore homered, 2 RBI; CJ McCarthy scored. | SEAHAWKS 4, ENGINEERS 4
- T6 - Owen Malone singled to right field, RBI; Malachi Soqui scored. | ENGINEERS 5, SEAHAWKS 4
- B8 - Tyler Petrosino singled to shortstop, RBI; Shea Donovan advanced to second; Shane Williams scored. | SEAHAWKS 5, ENGINEERS 5
- B10 - Tyler Petrosino singled to left center, RBI; Matthew Neal advanced to second; Wil McCarthy advanced to third; Shane Williams scored. | SEAHAWKS 6, ENGINEERS 5
NOTEWORTHY
- The Seahawks win their first-ever NEWMAC championship in any sport. Salve Regina men's soccer reached the final against Babson College last November.
- The Seahawks equal their best-ever win streak (17) in program history, set in 2023.
- Seahawk starting pitcher Brayden Clark, yesterday's winner in a 6-1 final against No. 2 Coast Guard, was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player.
- Seahawk head coach Eric Cirella '05 earns his fifth conference tournament championship and first since 2021 when a member of the Commonwealth Coast Conference (now Conference of New England).
- Salve Regina has won its conference championship 12 times in baseball including the first-ever CCC title in 1985.
- Salve Regina has been the NEWMAC regular-season champion each of its first two seasons in the league.
- Shane Williams and Tyler Petrosino led the Seahawk offense with three hits apiece.
- Salve Regina had four stolen bases -- SB: Grover, Brandon (1); Williams, Shane (1); Donovan, Shea (1); Schopps, Grady (1) -- including three in the same inning. Each of the four base thieves came around to score.
ON DECK
The Seahawks will learn their regional destination in the NCAA Selection Show which starts at noon on Monday, May 12 -
https://www.ncaa.com/sports/baseball/d3 - and will begin play next weekend (May 16-18).
