Baseball | 5/9/2019 4:35:00 PM

Box Score OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. (May 9, 2019) - Returning to the East Coast Conference Tournament for the first time in 21 years, the Queens College baseball team ran into a buzzsaw on the mound in LIU Post ace James Varela; the Knights were shut out by the Pioneers in a 9-0 final score on the first day of the ECC Tournament at Angelo Lorenzo Memorial Field in Old Westbury on Thursday (May 9).

Fourth-seeded Queens will face second-seed NYIT on Friday (May 10) at 9:30 a.m. in an elimination game in Old Westbury. 

Jon Strauss had a lead-off single in the first inning against Varela, but he was wiped from the base-paths on a double play. LIU Post, meanwhile, got to QC starter Dylan Hughes in the bottom of the second inning as David Franchi's RBI single brought home Mike Manzione to put the Pioneers ahead by a 1-0 score. LIU Post scored twice in the bottom of the third inning as Chris Wasson and David Brehm each collected run-scoring hits and a three-run fourth inning put the game further away from QC to attempt a comeback. Zach Fritz hit two home runs for the Pioneers in the contest, as well.

Brian Watters had two hits for the Knights with Ron Linsalato and Ronmel Ocampo also recording a base hit. Hughes yielded five earned runs on eight hits in three-and-two-thirds innings of work while Brandon Hoskins went the final four-and-a-third for Queens, striking out three batters. 

Varela pitched a complete-game shut-out with nine strikeouts in the victory.

You can view Friday morning's game on the ECC Sports Network as well as on queensknights.com.