York, Pa. (May 3, 2018) - Fourth-seeded Widener University (21-17) scored eight times in the second inning and five more in the third on its way to a 17-4 win over #1 Alvernia University (26-12-2) Thursday afternoon in the first game of the MAC Commonwealth Baseball Championships at PEOPLESBank Park.

The Pride send 12 batters to the plate in the second inning with Stephen DeBellis reaching on a single to open the inning and scoring a run, and later hitting a grand slam to put Widener up 8-0.

Sean Esch gave up eight earned runs in an inning and a third.

Tim Carfrey took over and got out of the second before leaving with the bases loaded and a run across in the third.  He turned it over to Aaron Kulp and the Pride followed with three run-scoring singles and a sacrifice fly to push the lead to 13-0 after three innings.

Alvernia finally started to make some noise against Widener starter Josh Lafferty in the fifth.  Marcus Celiano singled to start the inning and after a wild pitch, Colin Rieger doubled to drive him in.  Dillon Dunne brought in a run with a grounder to short and Nathan Sides hit his first home run of the season, a 2-run shot that set a 13-4 score.

Alvernia had two runners on in both the sixth and seventh, but couldn't push across a run.  Widener tacked on three runs in the ninth on a 3-run homer from DeBellis.

Sides and Rieger both had two hits each for the Golden Wolves.

Alvernia kicks into the losers bracket and will face the loser of game two between #2 Arcadia and #3 Hood at 3:00 p.m. Friday.  Widener will face the winner in game three at 11:00 a.m. Friday.

#4 Widener 17, #1 Alvernia 4