Owls Wrap up Trip with Loss Versus Keystone

WESTFIELD, Mass. – Westfield State senior Sam Palmer (Medfield, Mass.) homered and drove in three runs as part of a four-hit afternoon, but the Owls were unable to climb out of an early deficit in a 7-4 loss against Keystone College from Fairfax, Virginia on Sunday afternoon.

The Owls drop the first three games of the season against stiff competition as the Giants, who are currently receiving votes after falling out of the D3baseball.com top 25 poll, improve to 4-2 overall.

Keystone jumped out to a two-run lead after half an inning, getting a two-out RBI single from Benny Hess, who then stole second and scored on a double from Dante Ruby.

Palmer recorded his first RBI of the game in the bottom half, driving in Alex Martin (Shrewsbury, Mass.) on a single to cut the deficit in half.

Two more runs crossed the plate in the second inning for the Giants, which tallied six of their seven runs in the first four innings of the game. All seven runs scored for Keystone came with two outs.

Westfield had plenty of traffic early in the contest, leaving five men on over the first two innings with Palmer driving in the Owls second run of the game.

In the fifth inning with the Owls trailing 6-2, the first three Westfield players reached base, starting with a walk from Martin, a single by Palmer, then Chase Racine (Pittsfield, Mass.) reaching first on a hit by pitch. Colin Ryan (Chelmsford, Mass.) registered a sacrifice fly to trim the deficit to three runs, then the Owls reloaded the bases with just one out before consecutive strikeouts stranded all three runners.

A pair of runners were left on in the sixth inning as back-to-back punchouts kept the game a three-run margin.

Hess pushed the Giants lead to four runs on a run-scoring single and after three up three down in the home half, Westfield was down to their final three outs.

With one out in the ninth, Palmer belted his second long ball of the season and the 25^th of his impressive career, sitting alone in second place on the all-time homers list in program history.

A strikeout and a groundout ended the game with Aidan Kee recording the final three outs. Cooper Ryan shut down the Owls offense in the middle frames, picking up the victory over 3.2 innings, allowing no runs with just one hit allowed and seven strikeouts.

Jack Novak (Colchester, Conn.) got the start for Westfield and took the loss, covering three innings and giving up five runs on seven hits. Ryan Peters (Billerica, Mass.) gave the Owls a quality appearance and length out of the bullpen in their third game in three days, tossing three scoreless innings with four Ks and one hit.

Westfield State will return back to Maryland next weekend as the Owls visit Westminster, Maryland to face McDaniel College for a three-game series on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday.