May 2, 2008

LANCASTER, Pa. - Franklin & Marshall senior Matt Kalos continued his domination of Haverford batters to lead Franklin & Marshall to a 6-0 win in the first round of the 2008 Centennial Conference Baseball Championships on Friday. He worked his second complete game shutout in as many starts against the Fords this year. He struck out nine on Friday to move to 4-3 on the year.

The Diplomats' (19-15) right-hander is now 2-0 with a save in his three appearances against Haverford (25-13-1) this season. In 19 innings of work against the Route 30 rival, Kalos has held the Fords scoreless on 11 hits. Nine of the knocks came today. He has thrown 23 career innings to the Fords with the only two runs coming against him in a relief appearance in his freshman season.

Haverford's best chance at breaking the Kalos curse came in the seventh inning. Will Stafford led off the frame with a double into left, and made his way to third on Jamie Holowell's single. Holowell narrowly avoided being caught on the steal, leaving Haverford with runners on second and third without any outs. Kalos retired the next three batters with a pair of groundouts serving as bookends on a routine fly ball to left.

F&M got the game-winning run in the first when Rich Gallugi plated leadoff batter Shea Moriarty with a hard hit ball through the left side. Moriarty had reached on a walk. Gallugi scored in the third on a Bill Murray single to make it 2-0.

While the bulk of the runs came one at a time, Diplomats second bagger, Mark Minutaglio, hit a two run blast over the leftfield fence in the bottom of the sixth to make it 6-0. His third home run of the season was the only hit of the game for Minutaglio, but he managed to score twice and drive in three runs. Moriarty and Gallugi each picked up a pair of hits. Morairty scored twice in the game.

Haverford ace, Stefan Pappius-Lefebvre, worked out of the inning after Minutaglio's home run, but did not return for the seventh. He surrendered six earned runs on 10 hits and five walks to fall to 7-2.

Holowell, Dean Laganosky, and Drew Wilcox each recorded two hits for Haverford.

The tournament shifts to Baltimore on Saturday with the Diplomats facing hosting Hopkins at 9:00 am. Haverford will face Muhlenberg immediately afterwards.