NEWPORT, R.I. (May 8, 2026) -- Seniors
Elliot Hamilton (Glastonbury, Conn.) and
Evan O'Rourke (Arlington, Conn.) each knocked in three runs to lead No. 4-ranked and top-seeded Salve Regina University baseball to a 13-6 victory over fourth-seeded Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the first game of the double-elimination round of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Championships at Reynolds Field on Friday afternoon.
The Seahawks (35-4) led 8-4 in the top of the seventh when the second wave of rain clouds blew through and halted action for 41 minutes. When play resumed at 5:33 p.m. ET, the Engineers (14-20) added two more runs to creep within two, including
Dalton Chi's (Cerritos, Calif.) eighth RBI in the tournament (two games). O'Rourke's two-run double capped a four-run eighth for Salve Regina.
Rain had fallen earlier in the contest without a delay, but perhaps led to some sloppy play in the field. The teams combined for eight errors with five on the winning side.
Salve Regina junior starter
Luis Ortiz Ramirez (Boston, Mass.) raised his record to 9-0 as he held MIT hitless through the first four innings.
John Spivey (Saint Louis, Mo.), who reached on a Seahawk throwing error in the second inning, led off the fifth frame with a single up the middle. Ortiz Ramirez hit
James Dempsey (Grand Rapids, Mich.) and a fielder's choice sacrifice bunt was thrown into foul territory to get the Engineers on the scoreboard. After Dempsey scored on a wild pitch, Ortiz Ramirez got his third whiff.
Owen Malone (Portsmouth, R.I.) drove in the third Engineer run of the inning and later advanced to second on a failed pickoff attempt. Spivey connected on a two-out single through the left side to bring Malone home.
The Seahawks got one back in their fifth when
Grady Schopps (Fairfield, Conn.) led off with a double down the left field line and
Shane Williams (Georgetown, Mass.) delivered a two-out single to right field. Williams leads the league in runs batted in, now with 58.
Seahawk pitchers -- Ortiz Ramirez,
Joe DeRienzo (Trumbull, Conn.), and
Ethan Santerre (Bristol, R.I.) -- limited the Engineer batters to just four singles. Salve Regina collected four doubles, one each for Hamilton, O'Rourke,
Danny Rogers (New Canaan, Conn.), and
Dylan Cimini (Stonington, Conn.). Rogers led off the Seahawk first with a first-pitch two-bagger to the opposite side and later scored the first run. Salve Regina put a run on the board in seven of its eight at bats (zero in the fourth).
The Engineers meet second-seeded Wheaton College at a neutral site for the second straight year in an elimination game. Last year at Brown University, MIT had a walk-off home run by
C.J. McCarthy (Pawling, N.Y.) to defeat Wheaton, 7-5. Tomorrow, the teams will square off in Game Five at Bill Beck Field on the campus of the University of Rhode Island at 9:30 a.m. Salve Regina hosts third-seeded Babson at the same time on Reynolds Field in a winner's bracket matchup, Game Six. The Beavers defeated the Lyons, 3-2, in Norton, Massachusetts, this afternoon.
The winner of Game Five will meet the loser of Game Six (on the turf at Bill Beck Field) in another elimination game on Saturday, slated for no earlier than 1 p.m. All games are on
FloCollege.
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