Women's Lacrosse & Men's Volleyball & Baseball: "On This Day" 4-20-19
Posted: Apr 20, 2020

Women's Lacrosse & Men's Volleyball & Baseball: "On This Day" 4-20-19

"On This Day" is a Wells College Athletics feature designed to look back over the past three seasons when most of our 2020 seniors began play for the Express and what highlights happened to Wells' spring teams on this day on April 20

Women's Lacrosse: April 20, 2019

The Wells College women's lacrosse team honored its 10-member senior class and won a North Eastern Athletic Conference game on Saturday, April 20 at the Wells Turf Field. Wells defeated Lancaster Bible College 20-11 to improve to 4-3 in the conference and 6-5 overall. Lancaster Bible is 3-12 on the year and 2-5 in the NEAC.

The Wells senior class includes Renee Bartosz, Anna Bozeat, Molly Doubet, Amanda Fastiggi, Courtney Good, Mackenzie Maloney, Miranda Mingen, Katherine Pryor, Julia Smith, and Alexius Stanton.

The Express scored the first two goals of the game and never trailed. Mingen and Smith opened the scoring, then after an LBC goal Maloney and Bartosz tallied for Wells.

A five-goal run for Wells in the middle of the first half provided some cushion as Smith and Maloney scored twice each and Bartosz added a goal. Wells led 11-5 at halftime, and outscored Lancaster Bible 9-6 in the second half.

Maloney surpassed 300 career points, Bartosz passed 150 career points and Smith passed 100 career points in the LBC victory. Maloney had six goals and four assists, Bartosz had seven goals and one assist, and Smith had three goals.

Fastiggi, Savanah Connors, Mingen, and Stanton scored once each. Wells held a 40-32 advantage in shots. Lancaster Bible won 19 draw controls to 12 for the Express, while Bozeat made nine saves and Delaney Kendrick had six saves for the Express.

Baseball: April 20, 2019

The Wells College baseball team defeated Cazenovia College 8-4 on Saturday, April 20 at the Wells Turf Field. Jared Strait pitched eight strong innings and Derek Shea had a pair of two-run singles.

The win gave Wells six NEAC victories on the season and the most conference wins in a single season for a Wells baseball program record since the team's inception three years ago. Wells currently stands tied for fourth in the conference standings. The top six teams will make the NEAC playoffs.

Saturday's game was moved from Cazenovia to Wells, but the Wildcats batted in the bottom of each inning as the designated home team.

The Express went ahead 2-0 in the top of the first when A.J. Nesci started the rally with a single and Mark Yorkey followed with a double. Tyler Young delivered a two-run single later in the inning.

Cazenovia tied it in the third on two-run homer to right by Bobby Antonacci.

In the fourth, Shea came through with a single up the middle to bring home Tanner Dunkel and Young.

Once again Cazenovia tied it, scoring twice in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI single by Antonacci and a run-scoring ground out.

Shea came through again in the top of the sixth. His single to center brought in Dunkel and Anthony Aumick. Shea came home to score on a balk later in the inning. Wells added an insurance run in the ninth on a sac fly by Yorkey to bring in Kevin Spaeth.

Starting pitcher Jared Strait earned the victory with eight strong innings. He allowed six hits and four runs with seven strikeouts and two walks. Alexander Mott pitched the ninth and retired three in a row after a leadoff single.

Young, Shea, and Spaeth had two hits each. Yorkey's double in the first was the only extra-base hit of the game for Wells, which totaled 10 hits in the ballgame.

Men's Volleyball: April 20, 2019

The Wells College men's volleyball team saw its historic 2019 season come to an end in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament with a five-set loss at third-ranked Stevens Institute of Technology on Saturday, April 20. Set scores were 23-25, 25-21, 16-25, 25-20 and 15-12.

Wells finished its season with a 28-9 record, the most wins and highest winning percentage in a single season in the program's eight-year history. They are the first team in any sport at Wells to win an NCAA tournament game, achieved Friday night against Southern Virginia University.

The Express took the opening set 25-23. Wells trailed 23-21 but won the last four points in a row on a block from Ryan Turner and Joe Zimmerman, kills from Turner and Robert Patzer, and a hitting error on the Ducks.

Stevens rallied to win the second set 25-21. Wells led 4-1 early but Stevens went on an 11-4 run to take the lead, which it held the rest of the way. Stevens hit .500 in the set with 16 kills and two errors.

The Express went back ahead by taking the third set decisively. Wells won 25-16 and had 19 kills and three errors for a .390 hitting percentage, and led two sets to one.

Stevens tied things up by taking the fourth set 25-20. Wells led 9-6 early but Stevens won five points in a row. From there it was back-and-forth. Wells pulled within one at 20-19, but Stevens won five of the next six points to take the set. Wells hit .028 in the fourth with eight kills and seven errors.

Wells trailed 4-1 in the decisive set and slowly closed the gap. After the changeover, Stevens led 9-7 but a kill from Patzer and an ace by Zimmerman tied the score 9-9, and a pancake dig from Josh Undari went over the net and earned the go-ahead point for Wells, the first lead of the set for the Express. Stevens answered with a side out after a timeout and the teams traded points to 12-12. A block by Stevens put the Ducks ahead 13-12 and a hitting error on Wells gave two match points to Stevens. The Ducks closed it out 15-12 in the fifth.

Justin Williams had 16 kills and hit .667 in the match and had four block assists. Caden O'Loughlin had 15 kills, served three aces, led the team with 12 digs, and added one solo block and five block assists. Zimmerman had 11 kills and served two aces, with 11 digs. Undari had 51 assists and eight digs and served two aces.

Stevens advances to the NCAA semifinals next weekend where the Ducks will face UC Santa Cruz on Friday, April 26 at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. The other semifinal will match defending national champions Springfield College against SUNY New Paltz.

NOTES:

  • Caden O'Loughlin passed 500 kills for the season, the first player in program history to reach that mark and one of two players in the country to hit that mark for the season.
  • The back-and-forth contest was measured in the stats as Stevens won 104 total points and Wells won 103 points.
  • Stevens is exceptionally tough on its home court, as the Ducks have one loss at Canavan Arena since 2015 and has more than 50 wins at home in that time.
  • The Ducks are ranked third in the most recent American Volleyball Coaches Association Division III Men's Poll. Stevens won the NCAA Division III Championship in 2015, was in the final four in 2016 and 2017, and advanced to the championship match in 2018 where the Ducks fell to Springfield College.