Courtesy Trinity Sports Information

HARWICH, Mass. – Senior RHP Joe Westcott (Holyoke, Mass.) allowed one earned run and six hits over 6.2 innings and classmate Bill Wise (East Longmeadow, Mass.) went 3-for-5 with two runs and three RBI to lead the Trinity College Bantams to an 8-2 win over the Wheaton College Lyons in the winner’s bracket finals of the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship Tournament at Whitehouse Field this afternoon.

Trinity, ranked No. 1 in New England and No. 5 in the nation, improves to a best-ever 34-7 with its third straight win in the tournament and advances to the championship round tomorrow at noon. The team to emerge from this afternoon’s loser’s bracket games will need to beat the Bantams twice tomorrow to knock them out of the tournament, while Trinity will win the region and advance to the NCAA Division III National Championship Tourney next weekend in Wisconsin for the second time in three seasons with one victory tomorrow. The Lyons, which are now 32-11, will play the winner of this afternoon’s game between Worcester State and Suffolk in tonight’s loser’s bracket finals.

Trinity took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning and never lost its lead, while Westcott and junior reliever Gabe Rotman (Arlington, Mass.) combined on a seven-hitter with three strikeouts apiece. Rotman came in with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the seventh frame, holding Wheaton to one run on a Trinity fielding error and blanking the Lyons in the last two innings. The Bantams scored their two first two runs on a pair of singles by Wise and senior co-captain 3B Jeff Natale (Hamden, Conn.), a wild pitch, and a two-out, two-run single by senior co-captain C Andrew Fries (Dublin, Ohio).

Wheaton loaded the bases off Westcott in the second inning, but scored just one run when sophomore C Adam Laplante (Harwich, Mass.) scored freshmen Pat ‘Connor (Mattapoisett, Mass.), who had opened the inning with a double, on a sacrifice fly. Westcott recorded a strikeout to end the threat with two runners on base.

Trinity opened the game up in the second inning with four runs on back-to-back RBI singles by sophomore SS Tim Bourdon (Simsbury, Conn.) and Wise and a two-run single by junior 1B Erik Paisley (Bethesda, Md.). Lyon freshman RHP Louis Bernardini (Gray, Maine) came in for junior starter Chris Martin (Marshfield, Mass.) and got a double play to end the inning. Bernardini went on to hold Trinity to four hits and one earned run over the next seven innings with five strikeouts. Trinity added two more runs in the sixth inning on a leadoff single by freshman OF Chandler Barnard (Lubbock, Texas), a Lyon fielding error, and a two-run single by Wise.