HARWICH, Mass.— A day after throwing a complete game shutout, Bridgewater State's Corey Batista belted a three-homer and added a double to lead the Bears to an 8-5 win over Rhode Island College in the winner's bracket semifinal of the 2011 NCAA Division III New England Regional Baseball Championship at Whitehouse Field.
The eighth-seeded Bears improve to 25-15 on the season while the Anchormen fall to 22-19. Bridgewater will take on Western New England College in the winner's bracket final on Friday afternoon at 4:30.
RIC, the number five seed, falls into the loser's bracket, where they will face third-seeded Wheaton College in an elimination game tomorrow morning (9:30). The winner will also need to win another Friday elimination game against an opponent to be determined in game 12 to advance to the fourth day of tournament competition.
Starter Dave Billotte (3-3) hurled a complete game to earn the victory, allowing four earned runs and five walks. He scattered nine hits and struck out three.
Rhode Island College (22-19) left 11 runners on base and went 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position.
Keane Costa also had a pair of hits for the Bears and drove in a pair of runs. He singled in a run in BSU's four-run sixth inning and later scored on Batista's three-run blast. Costa added an RBI single in the ninth.
Bridgewater took an early 2-0 lead scoring a run in each of the first two innings. In the first, David Pierce singled off the pitcher and scored all the way from first on Tyler Dennis' double down the left field line. Jose Polanco drew a two-out walk in the second and came around to score on John Garabedian's RBI double.
Gary Levesque and Kyle Allaire led the Anchormen with a couple hits apiece. Justin Corso contributed an RBI single in the sixth and Allaire scored on fielding error in the seventh.
Levesque suffered the loss (5-6) on the mound. He went 5 1/3 innings, allowing six earned runs on five hits, with seven strikeouts and four walks.
The Anchormen made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth when they pushed across three runs, highlighted by Ronnie Bracchi's three-run double.