BOX SCORE

Boyertown, Pa. (May 3, 2008) – Centenary College (20-18) scored 10 runs in the third inning and senior Chris Mattson (West Deptford, N.J./West Deptford) threw a complete game as the third-seeded Cyclones advances to the final series in the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference Baseball Championships with a 14-4 win over top-seeded Alvernia College (31-12) Saturday evening at Bear Stadium.

Centenary will face second seed Gwynedd-Mercy College at 1:00 on Sunday needing a win to force a second game. Alvernia wrapped up its final appearance in the PAC Championship and will await a potential bid into the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament.

Alvernia sent eight batters to the plate in the home half of the second inning and pushed across three runs for an early 3-0 lead. James Geosits (Wyomissing, Pa./Willson) doubled to lead off the inning and scored on a Chris Stoudt (West Lawn, Pa./Governor Mifflin) sacrifice fly. Corey Berghardt (Boyertown, Pa./Boyertown) bunted his way on and Eric Focht (Emmaus, Pa./Emmaus) followed with a base hit to left. Senior Tim Carroll (Bensalem, Pa./Conwell Egan) poked a single to left field scoring Berghardt and moving Focht to second.

Freshman Tim Ahlquist (Millville, N.J./Millville) hit a ground ball to second that wasn't fielded cleanly and Focht sped around third to score as the throw was late to first. Carroll and Ahlquist pulled off the double steal to put two runners in scoring position, but Mattson got out of the inning with a ground ball to third.

The Cyclones sent 15 batters to the plate in the top of the third inning scoring 10 runs to take a 10-3 lead. With two on and one out Centenary got RBIs from five straight batters including a two-run double off the bat of Andrew Materia (Jackson, N.J./Jackson Memorial). With two out, the Cyclones plated two more runs on back-to-back seeing-eye bloopers before senior reliever Pete Fernandez (Waldwick, N.J./Bogota) finally ended the inning on a fly ball to right.

Alvernia got one back in the fourth when Stoudt led off with a double and scored on a bunt base hit by Carroll, but Centenary answered with a 3-run homer in the fifth off the bat of Jared Grant (Flanders, N.J./CC of Morris).

Alvernia had a runner on in each of the last three innings, but each time they were stranded including twice on inning-ending double plays.

Grant finished the day 4-for-5 for the Cyclones with two runs scored and six RBIs, and Mark DeMaio (Morris Plains, N.J./Parsippany Hills) was 3-for-4 with four runs scored and an RBI. Alvernia was led by Carroll who was 3-for-5 with two RBIs.

#3 Centenary 14, #1 Alvernia 4