FLUSHING, N.Y. (May 6, 2019) - The 21-year drought is finally over. The Queens College baseball team is back in the East Coast Conference postseason tournament.

As Joe Piscitelli's ninth-inning pop fly settled into the glove of first baseman Joe O'Rourke, the Queens College baseball team had completed one part of its mission to earn a postseason berth. The Knights' 14-11 win over LIU Post in Brookville on Monday (May 6) allowed the squad to end the year 14-14 in conference play, needing a win several hours later by Molloy to clinch the fourth and final spot in the ECC Tournament later this week.

Later on in the evening, Molloy starting pitcher Billy Wildeman struck out Mercy pinch hitter Rafael Perez to finish up a 1-0 Lions win. And with that, QC locked up a bid for the ECC title for the first time since the Knights won the 1998 New York Collegiate Athletic Conference (the fore-runner to the ECC) tournament.

In order to get there, the Knights had to defeat an LIU Post team that won the first three games of the series against them, a team that was 24-3 in ECC play and already secured the No. 1 seed in the ECC Tournament; the final game of the series was moved from Sunday (May 5) to Monday in Brookville due to a heavy rain on Sunday, yet the weather was picture-perfect for baseball at LIU Post on Monday. Queens gave starting pitcher Jack Palma a 2-0 lead before he even threw a pitch as two runs came home on Pioneer errors. LIU Post, however, would not make the win a cakewalk for Queens as Piscitelli singled home a pair of runs in the bottom of the second inning to even the score at 2-all.

Queens re-took the lead in the top of the fifth inning without recording an out. Louis Antos drew a lead-off walk and advanced to third on an O'Rourke double. Eric Roubal then brought home the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly, giving the Knights a 3-2 edge. Later in the inning, Nick Font cleared the bases on a double to push home three more runs and give the Knights a 6-2 lead. In the very next inning, Ron Linsalato and Brian Watters each struck for a pair of two-RBI singles and a Font sacrifice fly put Queens up by an 11-2 margin.

The Pioneers answered back with two runs in the bottom of the sixth and seven runs in the bottom of the seventh, however, to even the score at 11-all. In the top of the eighth inning, Queens went ahead for good. Roubal led off with an infield single before Linsalato crushed a two-run home run to left field to give the Knights a 13-11 lead. In the same inning, Anthony Scotti brought home QC's fourteenth run of the game and gave reliever Kevin Kochen a three-run cushion to work with. The sophomore took care of LIU Post in the eighth and Bryan Krolikowski sealed the win for the Knights in the ninth inning...and with that plus the Molloy victory several hours later, the Knights returned to the playoff picture.

Queens, as the No. 4 seed, will take on top-seeded LIU Post on Thursday (May 9) in the opening day of the three-day ECC Tournament with the games set to be played at Angelo Lorenzo Memorial Field on the campus of NYIT in Old Westbury. A full preview will be found in the coming days right here on queensknights.com.