Boyertown, PA (5-15-10) – The Keystone College baseball team is back in familiar territory, as for the third consecutive year the Giants are heading back to the NCAA Division III baseball championships and for the second consecutive year the CSAC baseball title is back in La Plume,
The Giants downed Gwynedd-Mercy College 4-1 in the conference title game at Bear Stadium to take the crown and the automatic NCAA berth.
Senior Sean Murphy turned in a stellar performance on the mound, tossing eight innings of five hit ball and striking out six. Fellow senior Eric Groff picked up the Most Outstanding Player honors for the championships.
The Giants will now await what regional they will be assigned too for the upcoming national tournament.
Groff capped off his tournament with a three-for-five day at the plate, scoring once, while Esteban Meletiche picked up a pair of hits.
Victor Lara picked up the save by throwing a perfect ninth, ending the game via the strikeout.
Yazy Arbello and Angel Fargas each picked up an RBI in the victory.
As has been the standard during the CSAC Championships, the Giants struck early by pushing across two in the bottom of the first.
Keystone loaded the bases on singles by Meletiche and Groff and a catcher's interference call. Two runners came around to score when the Griffins couldn't handle an Angel Fargas ground ball on the left side of the infield. The Giants attempted to add more, but the Griffins worked out of the jam leaving the bases loaded.
Keystone added a single run in the second when Angel Fargas drew a two-out bases loaded walk.
After the Griffins got on the board with a run in the third, the teams put up three scoreless innings as the pitching took over in the middle innings. Both teams had two out chances to score but could not capitalize until Keystone extended the lead in the sixth to 4-1 on a one out single by Yazy Arbello.
The Griffins tried to cut the lead to one in the top half of the sixth with an attempted steal of home that the Giants snuffed out.
Gwynedd-Mercy tried to put a dent in Murphy's armor in the eight as the first two batters reached safely.
However, the senior hurler set down the next three hitters in order to squash the Griffins rally.
Box Score
