DAVENPORT, Fla. – Suffolk baseball could not hold onto its early lead and St. Scholastica came back to handle the Rams, 12-3, in the blue-and-gold's final outing of the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational at the NERP Complex. 

THE BASICS
SCORE: Suffolk 3 | St. Scholastica 12
RECORDS: Suffolk (0-7) | St. Scholastica (8-3) 

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Free bases on a Jack Mihalchik walk and Luke Thornton hit by pitch followed by a double steal put Rams on second and third in the first frame with one out. Sam Armbruster cleared the bags with a double up the middle. One out and two hit by pitches later, all the ducks were in the pond for Suffolk and a balk allowed Armbruster to come in to pad the margin to 3-0. 
• St. Scholastica made up one run in the bottom of the first. Markus Isaiah singled and moved to third on back-to-back wild pitches to set up Luke Krull's RBI ground out to short. 
• An inning later the Saints added another run to trim Suffolk's lead to one. This time the run came behind a two-out solo shot by Kellan Graning over the center field fence. 
• Following a scoreless third, St. Scholastica flipped the script in its favor in the fourth. Owen Maslowski singled and worked his way to third on a wild pitch followed by a balk. Tommy Crupi's single to left brought in the tying run. From there, Crupi used a sac bunt to take second and came in thanks to Tyler Tiedeman's single through the left side to put the Rams in a 4-3 hole. 
• The Saints padded their advantage with the three-run fifth and put the game out of reach with five more runs in the bottom of the seventh.  

PITCHERS PICTURE

• Harry Meehan took the loss as he allowed seven runs, six earned, on nine hits and one walk in 4.1 innings of work. 
• Nick Arnett (2.1 IP, 4 R, 5 H, 2 BB, 1 K), Joey Smith (0.1 IP, 1 R, 2 H) and Jack La Natra (1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 K) came out of the pen for Suffolk. 
• Michael Zunker earned the decision with 5.0 innings of scoreless effort. He let up two hits and one walk with four Ks to his credit.
• Logan Pirce (1.1 IP, 3 R, 1 H, 1 BB, 1 K), Nico Gallegos (1.2 IP, 1 K) and Nick Thums (1.0 IP) all came in for the Saints as well.  

STATISTICALY SPEAKING

• Suffolk's three hits were scattered across three bats in Thornton, Hilliard and Armbruster.
• Armbruster brought in two runs on his hit, a double. 
• Mihalchik, Thornton and Armbruster scored one run apiece. 
• Mihalchik, Thornton and Hilliard had one steal each.  

NOTEWORTHY

• Suffolk and St. Scholastica met for the third straight season and fourth time overall. 
• All games between the Rams and Saints have taken place on a neutral diamond. 
• Armbruster has logged one hit in the last five games. 
• Thornton pushed his hit streak to four games. In that span he has five hits. 
• La Natra and Smith made their collegiate debuts on the bump.  

WHAT'S NEXT?
Suffolk flies back to New England where it is set to open its home slate against Rivier Tuesday, March 17 at 3:30 p.m.