Staten Island, NY - Freshmen Nick Cimillo (Airmont, NY / Suffern) and Sam Franco (Bardonia, NY / Clarkstown South) combined for five hits and six RBI to power No. 5 Manhattan to a 6-2 win over No. 4 Marist in the opening round of the 2019 MAAC Championship at Richmond County Bank Ballpark.
Graduate student LHP John Cain (Middletown, NY / Lafayette) was the beneficiary of the offense, earning his MAAC-best ninth win of the year with nine strikeouts, against just one walk, while yielding one run over 8.0 dominating innings.
With the win, the Jaspers will next play No. 1 Canisius tonight at 7:15 pm
Manhattan opened the scoring with a run in the top of the first inning as Cimillo laced a run-scoring single through the left side to plate graduate student Shawn Blake (Stratford, CT / Elon) while setting the tone for the game.
The Jaspers broke the game open with four runs in the fifth inning with a huge one-out rally. Freshman Jonathan Barditch (Miami, FL / Belen Jesuit Prep) lofted a one-out single to center, before advancing to second on a throwing error, and scored on Franco's third hit of the game.
Blake followed with a walk and Cimillo took advantage with a mammoth three-run homer to left field to extend the lead out to 5-0.
Marist finally got on the board in the bottom of the sixth inning with a pair of runs on Tyler Kapuscinski's two-out, two-run double down to left field. However, Cain would hunker down and strike out the ensuing batter, stranding a runner at third in the process.
Manhattan got one of those runs back in the ninth inning as Franco hit a sacrifice fly to right field, chasing home graduate student Cam Crabbe (White Plains, NY / USF).
The Jaspers' MAAC All-Rookie trio of Barditch, Cimillo and Franco combined to go 8-for-13 with six RBI, three runs, a doulbe and a home run.
Kapuscinski was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI to pace the Red Foxes, while RHP Alex Pansini (5-4) was the tough-luck loser, yielding five runs, four earned, on eight hits with seven strikeouts over 8.0 innings.