GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- Kean scored four runs on six Trinity (Conn.) errors and recovered from a seventh-inning Bantam rally to win a sloppy opening-round game 8-5 at the Division III Baseball Championships.
Ryan Gibbons and Mike Mangianello knocked in a pair of runs apiece and D.J. Breckenridge scored twice as Kean (39-9) handed D3baseball.com Pitcher of the Year Jeremiah Bayer his first loss of the season.
Despite the win, Kean coach Neil Ioviero was less than impressed. "I think this was one of our top five worst games we played this year," he said afterward. "I don't think we were very good running the bases today. We gave too many opportunities for their offense. Offensively I think we ran ourselves out of innings big time. I don't think we laid off a lot of breaking balls that weren't strikes. We didn't have many strikeouts, but I thought the ones we did have, we gave away."
The Cougars had a runner picked off to end the fourth, ended the sixth inning on a caught stealing and had other baserunning mistakes masked by throwing errors by Trinity, which fell to 33-6.
Bayer labored through eight and a third innings, walking five and allowing 10 hits en route to four earned runs. Sean Killeen committed three of the errors and Bayer had one himself, leading to unearned runs in the eighth and ninth innings, following a three-run Trinity rally in the seventh.
"I felt we hung a guy out there to dry," said Trinity coach Bill Decker. "I guess that's what happens sometimes when you have some new players in the lineup, a couple of freshmen not battle-tested in this kind of venue. But it was more than them. We have some guys who should've made some plays."
Trinity struck first with an unearned run in the bottom of the first inning. After left field Jack Abbott led off the inning by beating out an infield single and stole second, he drew a throw back to second after going halfway on a fly ball. The throw from the cutoff man flew over the head of the second baseman, rolling all the way into the Kean bullpen and allowing Abbott to come around to score.
Bayer struggled with his control in the second inning, walking three batters, including Kean third baseman Nick Ramagli, who was trying to sacrifice himself. Dylan Laguna came in on a bases-loaded grounder to second to tie the game at 1-1 before Vinny Galya hit a soft liner into a double play at shortstop to end the inning. Kean added two more runs in the second on a pair of errors, a single and a double steal to take a 3-1 lead. But Bayer recovered to strike out Laguna and get a pair of grounders to short.
"Certainly from a defensive standpoint, we not only didn't throw we didn't catch either," Decker said. "Jeremiah pitched well enough to win. It's unusual for him to walk as many people as he did. I'm not down on him; he's been our guy all year. He's a competitor. With him on the mound we have to play a little differently."
Kean extended its lead to 4-1, then 6-2 with a pair of run in the top of the seventh thanks to a Dave Zavistoski double and singles from Breckenridge, Gibbons and D3baseball.com first-team All-American Michael Moceri. But Pedro Rivera, who battled through six inconsistent innings, walked the first two Trinity batters in the seventh before giving way to reliever Brandon Aich.
"I was upset, lost the zone a lot, gave up a lot of 4-0 walks," Rivera said. "Overall I wasn't too upset but I could bear down more."
Aich walked two more batters, sandwiched around a two-run single by right fielder James Wood as Trinity cut the lead to 6-5.
"What you want to do is expand leads, keep your bullpen fresh," Ioverio said. "When you have to go to your closer for the seventh, eighth and ninth, it has an effect later in the week."
But Aich settled down and retired six of the final seven batters in order for his 11th save.
"When we found out what region we were going to be playing we were very excited to be playing this game," Ioverio said. "If you're going to have a chance at this thing you have to beat the best team. I believe you have a really big deficit when you come here as the defending champ and I think a lot of emotion is going through you as the week goes on.
"When you come here without the target on your back you just focus on one game at a time."
Kean advances to face Wooster in Saturday's third game, scheduled for a 4:30 p.m. Central Time start. Trinity comes back for the 10 a.m. game against Carthage.