Cougars Bow Out of World
Series
Grand Chute, Wis. (5/24/08) - Freshman Ross Tonyan
(Lake Orion, Mich.) crossed the plate in the bottom of the
twelfth to send Adrian College (35-12) past Kean University, 7-6,
and in turn giving the Cougars their second straight loss and
elimination from the tournament.
Nate Sarkissian (South Lyon, Mich.) led off the inning
with a single up the middle. Tonyan would come in and pinch
run for him at first. After a successful sacrifice moved him
to second, Andrew Anderson (Farmington, Mich.) added a
single of his own to put runners at the corners. Todd
Meyers (Adrian, Mich.) then hit a ball in the hole at short
that was mishandled and Tonyan scampered across with the winning
run.
The Cougars finish the season with a 39-11 mark after advancing
to the championship tournament for the second year in a row after
claiming the crown a season ago.
In the early going Kean seemed to be handling the Bulldogs
scoring in each of the first five innings to take a 5-0 lead.
After a change in pitchers, KU would not record another hit until
the 11th inning. After recording single runs in
the first three innings, the Cougars tallied two in the top of the
fourth. Senior Dan Mattonelli (Hamilton,
N.J.) led off the inning with a single followed by a
single by senior Bryan Burke (Lindenhurst,
N.Y.). After a successful sacrifice by senior
catcher Kevin O'Neill (Union, N.J.), senior
Maikel De La Rosa (Newark, N.J.) drove in both
with a single to center.
Adrian responded with four in the bottom of the inning to pull
within 5-4. With one out and one runner on freshman Brian
Bilius (Toledo, Ohio) reached on a controversial catchers
interference to prolong the inning. Meyers later delivered a
huge blow, clearing the bases with a double to left-center.
After exchanging runs, Adrian tied things up in their half of
the seventh. With two outs, the Bulldogs got things going
with back-to-back walks. Bilius tied things up with an RBI
single to right.
The Bulldogs threatened in the bottom of the eleventh forcing
the bases loaded with one out. Aich got out of the jam
getting Steve Vanderheyden (Lake Orion, Mich.) to pop up
to short rightfield and Bilius to groundout to short on a bang-bang
play to end the inning.
After committing just four errors to this point this season, De
La Rosa uncharacteristically recorded three this afternoon while
O'Neill's interference call led to four errors this afternoon,
their second highest total of the season.
Offensively, De La Rosa was 3-for-5 with three RBI while Burke
was 3-for-5 with a run scored and RBI.
