ANDOVER, Mass. (May 18, 2023) – It was another milestone day on Thursday afternoon at Merrimack for Sam Mongelli (Marlboro, N.Y.). It was also a day to forget for the Sacred Heart University baseball team. Such is the way of baseball sometimes.
 
With his second hit of the day – a game-tying, solo home run to right-center in the sixth inning – Mongelli recorded his 82^nd hit of the season, establishing a new program record. The Pios would later strike for two in the eighth and led into the ninth, but Scott Elliott cracked a walk-off grand slam to lift the host Warriors to a 5-3 Northeast Conference victory on the campus of Greater Lawrence Technical School.
 
Sacred Heart (23-28, 15-13 NEC), which has already clinched a spot in the NEC Championship, needs one win in the final two games of the series to lock up at least the fifth seed. LIU won at Wagner on Thursday, which puts SHU's chances at the fourth seed on life support. The Pios and Merrimack (21-28, 14-14 NEC) are scheduled to meet in an 11:30 a.m. doubleheader on Friday to wrap up the series. Merrimack needs one more win, or one more loss by Maryland Easter Shore, to lock up its postseason berth.
 
Not to be lost in the late drama, both starting pitchers were fantastic on Thursday afternoon, as each fired seven innings of one-run ball. They combined to surrender just nine hits and struck out eight, though neither factored in the decision.
 
For SHU, it was right-hander Jake Babuschak (Jobstown, N.J.), who allowed one run on four hits and four walks, against five strikeouts, over seven strong. His only hiccup came in the fourth, when back-to-back singles and a walk loaded the bases with nobody out. Babuschak got Braydon Dolbashian to ground into a double play, which chased home the only run he would surrender.
 
On the other side, it was right-hander Justin Butera, who matched Babuschak stride-for-stride for Merrimack over seven innings. He allowed one run on five hits and one walk, with three strikeouts. Butera's only blemish was the sixth-inning, two-out, solo home run from Mongelli, the latter's team-leading 16^th of the season.
 
Then, the bullpens got involved. SHU struck for the lead immediately upon Butera's exit, with a pair of runs in the top of the eighth inning. Dante D'Amore (Southington, Conn.) walked leading off and chugged around to third on a double pulled down the left-field line by Joe Emerson (Carlstadt, N.J.). Tyler Galletti (Plainview, N.Y.) came up next as a pinch hitter, and dumped an RBI single into right field to put the Pios out front. An errant pickoff throw would allow Emerson to score to make it 3-1.
 
It was not to be for the road team though, as Merrimack had the final say in the last of the ninth, against right-hander Tyler Briggs (Franklin, Conn.). Briggs (1-3) got the first out quickly, via a flyout to right, but things unraveled from there. A walk, a wild pitch, a single and another walk loaded the bases with still just the one out, and now the tying and winning runs on base.
 
They would not stay on base for long. Elliott found a pitch to his liking and elevated it the other way, into the power alley in left-center. Justin Jordan (Darien, Conn.) gave chase, but ran out of room. Jordan went shoulder-first into the fence, the ball carried over it, and the Warriors bounded out of the first-base dugout to mob Elliott when he returned to home plate as the day's hero.
 
The grand slam made a winner out of left-hander Jack Collins (2-2), who had worked around a pair of hits and a walk to strand the bases full and pitch a scoreless top half of the ninth. Sacred Heart left 10 men on base in the game.