WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ – Monmouth hit a pair of home runs and starter Anthony Ciavarella (Phillipsburg, NJ/Phillipsburg) struck out nine, but the MU baseball team was unable to score a late run to tie the game and eventually fell to Siena Sunday afternoon, 6-4. The Hawks drop to 18-17 and 8-4 in conference, while Siena is now 12-21 and 7-4 in the league after taking two of three this weekend.
Siena got two in the top of the first on Jordan Folgers' two-run double to straightaway center to make it 2-0. MU got one back in the bottom of the inning after Grant Lamberton (Newark, DE/Salesianum) lined a ground-rule double into the right field corner and went to third on Shaine Hughes' (Sewell, NJ/Washington Townhip) base hit. Chris Gaetano (Madison Township) lifted a sacrifice fly to right to cut it to 2-1.
MU tied it in the last of the second, scoring when Dan Shea (Wilmington, DE/Salesianum) was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, making it two-all. Joe Drpich launched his second home run of the weekend, a three-run shot in the third, to give Siena a 5-2 lead.
Monmouth battled back with a pair of solo homers, getting one down the left field line from freshman Jordan McCrum (Dallas, PA/Dallas Senior) in the fourth and another leading off the fifth from Shea. That cut the Saints lead to 5-4, and MU put a runner at second with no outs in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings but were unable to bring in the tying run.
Siena tacked on a run in the ninth when three straight singles plated an insurance run, capped by Brian Kelly's RBI single. MU put two on in the ninth but could not score, and Siena took the rubber game of the three-game weekend series, 6-4.
Ciavarella took the loss, allowing five runs on six hits through six with nine strikeouts. Joe Molettiere (Sellersville, PA/Pennridge) threw three innings out of the bullpen, allowing a run on six hits. Bryan Goossens got the win for Siena, working 5.2 innings and giving up four runs on nine hits. Chris Amorosi and Dylan D'Anna combined for 3.1 shutout innings, with D'Anna notching his first save of the year.
Offensively, Drpich had three runs driven in and Kelly and Jordan Bishop each added three hits for Siena. The top three in Monmouth's order all had two hits, as did Robbie Alessandrine (Sewell, NJ/Gloucester Catholic), and Shea drove in a pair.
MU is back on the field Tuesday at Seton Hall at 4:00 p.m.
