STATEN ISLAND, NY – Monmouth Baseball advanced to the MAAC Championship Round with an 11-8 win over Quinnipiac on Friday evening in an elimination game. Ryan Lillie (Ocean, NJ/Ocean Township/Rhode Island) tossed 3.1 shutout innings with six strikeouts to earn the win, while Danny Long (Sellersville, PA/Pennridge) and Johnny Zega (Lincroft, NJ/Middletown South) drove in three runs apiece.

MU leapt to a big lead early, with Justin Trochiano (Morganville, NJ/Marlboro) slashing a two-run double inside the right field line in the second. Long followed with a three-run homer off the scoreboard in left to make it 5-0 Hawks, a lead that widened to 6-0 when JP Walsh (Spring Brook Township, PA/North Pocono) singled in a run in the third.

QU responded with a four-run fifth, scoring on a ground out and a sac fly before Ben Gibson singled in a run and Evan Vulgamore reached on an error, allowing a run to come across and trim the MU lead to 6-4. Zega drove in a run for MU in the bottom of the inning to get the edge back to 7-4 before the Bobcats came back with a four-run sixth to take the lead. Andre Marrero scored a pair with a double to deep left, and Gibson and Dylan Lutz both drove in runs to make it 8-7 Bobcats.

It was all Hawks from that point on, with MU scoring in each of their remaining at bats. Zach Schild (Lincroft, NJ/Middletown South) plated a run to tie the game with a sixth inning ground out, and Shaine Hughes (Sewell, NJ/Washington Township) lined a run-scoring hit to left to give MU the lead in the seventh. The Blue and White built on that lead as Zega snuck a two-run single into left in the eighth to make it 11-8. Lillie struck out six down the stretch and threw a 1-2-3 ninth to secure the win.

NOTES AND QUOTES
"We've been doing this all year. We changed some things in the middle of the year and it kind of changed some mindsets of some guys. We never give up and it's that never say die attitude every day. We could have mailed it in tonight when they took the lead and we didn't." – Dean Ehehalt

"They got some real firepower over there and Ryan was so effective. It was what we needed, a guy to go multiple innings and he answered the call. He's such a competitor, he's as competitive as anyone we've had here and he did a great job tonight." – Ryan Lillie

"All year I've just been focusing on executing pitches. I have a huge amount of trust in our pitching coach, Brady Kirkpatrick, so I was just out there maintaining my focus and hoping to execute some pitches." – Ryan Lillie

-Monmouth reached the 30-win plateau for the 11^th time in the Dean Ehehalt era, and second time in the last three years.
-MU pitching set a new single-season record for strikeouts, passing the 2009 mark of 377.
-Johnny Zega drove in a career-high three runs and now has five RBI's on the tournament.
-Ryan Lillie struck out a career-high six batters.
-Justin Trochiano posted his first career three-hit game.

NUMBERS CRUNCH
-Each team had 13 hits.
-Ryan Lillie moves to 3-0 on the year, while Mike Davis is now 3-2.
-Every Hawk who started the game had at least one hit.
-Ricky Dennis allowed four runs on six hits through 4.2 innings, three of them earned.
-Zach Schild doubled twice in the contest.

UP NEXT
-Monmouth will play Canisius in the championship round tomorrow, with first pitch set for noon.