Sports

Baseball team wins NEWMAC title again

Parker Tew ’15 is recognized as ‘most outstanding player’ of the tournament

Like it did in the first of the three-game 2015 New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Baseball Championship series, MIT took an early lead and then held off Wheaton College down the stretch as the Engineers claimed a 5-4 victory over the Lyons, giving MIT a 2-1 series win and its second straight NEWMAC championship. Parker Tew ’15 had three hits and drove in a run in the final game and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

After a pair of scoreless innings, MIT (24-11) took advantage of a Wheaton (25-15) miscue to score the game’s first run. With two down Tew followed a walk to Austin Filiere ’18 with a double to put runners on second and third. Hayden Cornwell ’15 hiit a ground ball to third that was misplayed into an error, allowing Filiere to score.

Wheaton immediately answered in the top of the fourth, getting a pair of walks that led to runners on second and third with two outs. Senior Justin Peluso then beat out an infield hit that scored junior Justin Silvestro from third to tie the game.

Reid Bishop ’15 started a two-run rally in the bottom half of that inning that put MIT on top for good. He led off with a double and subsequently moved up on a sacrifice. With the infield drawn in, Kendall Helbert ’16 got a ground ball just past the reach of the Lyons’ shortstop and into left field for an RBI single. Another hit moved Helbert to third and he then scored on a sac fly by Filiere to make tit 3-1.

In the fifth, a pair of base hits put a pair on for senior Phil Reiser ’15, whose base hit to right field put the Engineers up 4-1. Wheaton got one of the runs back in the sixth when Silvestro led off with a single, moved up on a walk and then scored on a double down the right field line off the bat of senior Tyler Contillo.

MIT went back up by three runs in the bottom of the sixth when Tew doubled in Garrett Greenwood ’18, who had led off the inning with an infield single. It went right back to a two-run game in the top of the seventh when Matt Lavanchy ’16 drove a pitch over the fence in right to make it 5-3.

MIT called on its bullpen to close things out, with senior K.J. Parent ’15 limiting the damage in the sixth inning to just a run when he came in with runners on second and third and no outs, and got out of the jam. He gave up just the home run to Lavanchy in the seventh before junior Michael Wymer ’16 came on in the eighth to close it out.

Wymer gave up a walk in the eighth, but held the Lyons at bay with a pair of strikeouts. In the ninth he ran into a jam when an error and a single put two aboard with two down for senior Apolinar De La Cruz, who laced a run-scoring single up the middle to make it 5-4. Wymer ended it there, however, getting the final out on a fielder’s choice to third to give MIT its second title in as many years.

Junior Alan Wang ’16 started for MIT and picked up the victory, going five solid innings and allowing two runs on five hits. Freshman Dan Southerland started for Wheaton and took the loss after giving up three runs (two earned) on four hits over the first 3.1 innings.

Tew finished his day 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and an RBI for MIT. Silvestro had three hits for Wheaton, including a double, and scored twice to lead the Lyons.