Baseball Gets by Nichols in Nightcap, 4-3

EAST BOSTON – In an edge-of-your-seat, down-to-the-wire finish, Max Iorio's bat brought in the game-winning run in the eighth and Caleb Piwnicki shoved a scoreless ninth to lock-up a 4-3 game two win over Nichols Sunday afternoon at East Boston Memorial Park. The victory secured the CCC doubleheader sweep of the Bison. 

THE BASICS
SCORE: Suffolk 4 | Nichols 3
RECORDS: Suffolk (6-5, 2-0 CCC) | Nichols (1-13, 0-2 CCC)  

HOW IT HAPPENED
Like the twinbill opener, Suffolk would take a two-run lead early, however, the scoring in the nightcap started in the first frame. With one out, Sam Armbruster reached on an overthrow by the Bison's third baseman Jim Marasco Armbruster turned on his wheels when Garret Roberts singled through the right side to set up an RBI for Harry Painter on a routine ground out to short. Marc Birbiglia collected an RBI of his own with a single up the middle that plated Roberts and gave the host the edge.  

Back-to-back Rams errors allowed the Bison to slice the gap in half in the top of the sixth.  

Suffolk got that run back in the home half of the inning. Armbruster led off the inning with a double down the right field line before Birbiglia drew a walk. Luke Harder had a marathon at bat and singled up the middle on a full count to plate Armbruster and restore the two-run margin, 3-1.  

After the blue-and-gold left the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh, three base hits and a wild pitch allowed the Bison to level the action at 3-all in the top of the eighth. 

Birbiglia barreled a double to right field to get the home half of the eighth going. A sac bunt from Harder moved the first baseman into prime scoring position. Timothy McCarthy went down swinging to put two outs on the board. Anthony Del Prete went to his bench and brought in Iorio to pinch hit. With a 1-0 count, the sophomore slugged a double to right center that scored Birbiglia to break the tie. 

Thanks to Iorio's heroics, Piwnicki came out of the pen in the top of the ninth with a one-run cushion. The senior sat down the first Bison swinging, but Karl Miller worked a walk to put the tying run on first. McCarthy gloved a pop up in foul territory to put two outs on the board before Miller swiped second during Andrew Croteau's at bat. With the tying run on second, Piwnicki tossed a ball in the zone that Croteau whiffed at for the final out of the inning and the day.

PITCHERS PICTURE

• George Breslin earned the win behind a three-run, two-earned, seven-hit, two-walk, five-strikeout, 8.0-inning effort. 
• Piwnicki logged the save with 1.0 inning of scoreless, hitless work. He gave up one walk and struck out the first and last batter he faced. 
• Eric Fields took the loss after letting up one run on one hit in 0.2 innings of work. 
• Nolan Sullivan tossed the final 0.2 frames of the Bison. He let allowed one hit and struck out two batters. 
• Starter Jack Kabel put together a three-run, one-earned, seven-hit, one-walk, seven-strikeout effort in 5.2 frames of work. 
• Sean Ryan came out of the pen for the Bison and shoved 1.0 innings of scoreless, hitless work with two walks and two punchouts. 

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

• Iorio's one hit was the most important as the sophomore secured the win with the game-winning RBI on a pinch hit double. 
• Birbiglia went 2-for-3 with one RBI and one double. 
• Roberts registered a 2-for-4 effort with a triple and one run. Armbruster scored twice and had one hit. 
• Harder tallied one hit and one RBI, as well as a sac. 
• Corey Frassica and Jonny Gilbride added one hit and one walk. 

NOTEWORTHY

• The Rams are off to the best start in CCC play (2-0) in program history. 
• It is the first time since 2019 that Suffolk starts its league campaign 2-0. 
• Suffolk moved to 20-20 all-time against Nichols. 
• The Rams have defeated the Bison in back-to-back battles for the first time in the Del Prete era and first since stringing three wins together over Nichols between a trio of outings in 2002, 2003 and 2018. 
• Suffolk is now 3-2 versus Nichols under Del Prete's guidance. 
• In Eastie, Suffolk is 2-1 against Nichols. 
• The Rams won back-to-back one-run games for the first time since April 14-17, 2019, a 3-2, eight-inning with over Lasell followed by a 6-5 decision at Curry. 
• Iorio is on a six-game hit streak. In that span he has 11 hits. 
• Harder and Birbiglia each stretched their hit streaks to three games. Both have four hits in that stretch. 
• Roberts has successfully hit in all, but one of Suffolk's 11 games this season, the Rams' opener. He has produced at least one hit in 10 straight games with five multi-hit efforts including today's two-hit outing. 
• Like Roberts, Gilbride has hit in all, but one of Suffolk's games this season. He is currently on a five-game hit streak with 10 hits in Suffolk's 2-2 week. 
• Armbruster scored a career-high two runs and knocked the first double of his collegiate career. 
  

POST-GAME PIC
  

WHAT'S NEXT?
Suffolk takes a break from CCC competition Tuesday, March 28 when it entertains Emerson in a Beantown battle in Eastie at 3:30 p.m.