Baseball eases past Eagles, 13-2, on Wed.

BROWN'S FOUR-RBI DAY LEADS BASEBALL PAST BOSTON COLLEGE, 13-2

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Senior Joe Michaud (Milford, Conn.) allowed one run over seven innings and classmate Kevin Brown (Northborough, Mass.) tied a career high with four RBI as the Bryant University baseball team defeated Boston College, 13-2, on Wednesday afternoon at Conaty Park.

With the victory, the Bulldogs (10-9-1) move over the .500 mark for the first time this season and earn their first victory over the Eagles (3-19) since 2009. Boston College had won the previous six games.

On Wednesday, the Black and Gold offense came to life, scoring 13 runs on 13 hits. For the third-straight game, Bryant got on the board in the first. Freshman AJ Zarozny (Shrewsbury, Mass.) dropped a single down the right field line, moved to third on consecutive wild pitches and then scored as Brown ripped a single to right field. The lead moved to 3-0 in the third inning as Zarozny doubled home sophomore Jordan Mountford (Guelph, Ont.) and sophomore John Mullen (Walpole, Mass.) scored Zarozny with a double play.

The Bulldogs effectively put the game away the very next half inning, scoring seven runs on five hits. Senior Dan Muscatello (Hopkinton, Mass.) led off the fourth with a single and scored as classmate Adam Claire's (Litchfield, Conn.) ground ball to short was misplayed in the infield and in the outfield. Claire advanced all the way to third on the play and scored as freshman Robby Rinn (Warwick, R.I.) singled through a drawn-in infield. Zarozny pushed the lead to 6-1 with an RBI single to right, scoring Rinn. Brown then walked to load the bases and Mullen promptly unloaded them with a bases-clearing double to right-center against reliever Jesse Adams. Mullen would score the final run of the inning on an infield error to make it 10-1.

Brown single-handedly capped the Bulldogs' scoring. He led off the bottom of the sixth with a solo home run to right field, his second of the season. Then, in the seventh, Brown cranked a two-run triple to the base of the wall in right-center to make it 13-1. The triple was the 14^th of his career, putting him one shy of tying Pat McKenna's program record of 15.

Making his third start of the season, Michaud did the rest, allowing just one run on six hits over seven innings to earn his first win of the season. He struck out six and issued just one walk. Michaud struck out a pair in the third, the second stranding John Hennessy on second. He allowed his only blemish of the day in the fourth as Tom Bourdon doubled to lead off the inning and then scored on two consecutive ground outs. Michaud was his best late, stranding runners on first and second with a strikeout in the sixth, and then stranding a runner on third in the seventh with a weak ground ball, a strikeout and a fly ball out.

Brown finished the day 3-for-3 with four RBI and two runs scored. He was one of five Bulldogs to contribute multiple hits on the afternoon along with Mountford (2-3), Zarozny (3-5), Muscatello (2-5) and Rinn (2-4). Mountford scored a career-high three runs and Zarozny scored a career-high four runs as the top three hitters in the order – Mountford, Zarozny, Brown – combined to go 8-for-11 with six RBI and nine runs scored. Redshirt junior Vaughn Hayward (Glendale, R.I.) tossed a scoreless eighth and freshman Kyle Wilcox (Sandy Hook, Conn.) pitched the ninth, allowing a run.

The Bulldogs will now travel to Hackensack, N.J., to face Fairleigh Dickinson in a four-game NEC series beginning on Friday, March 29. The teams will play a doubleheader on Friday and on Saturday.