Manhattan Wins 2011 MAAC Baseball Championship
MAAC Sports
Box Score
Trenton, NJ - The Manhattan College baseball team is going to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in 54 years after winning its second Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title on Saturday at Waterfront Park in Trenton. After two dramatic walk-off finishes to advance to the MAAC Championship Round of the double elimination tournament, the Jaspers rolled to a 5-1 victory over Siena (28-30) behind a dominant 13 strikeout pitching performance from Tournament MVP Mike Giordano in the title bout.
The championship triumph was also a landmark victory for Jaspers' head coach Kevin Leighton who reached the 200-career win plateau in six years at Manhattan. Leighton is only the third coach in Manhattan College Athletics history to achieve this milestone.
Freshman Yoandry Galan propelled Manhattan out to a lead it would not relinquish by getting the Jaspers' on the scoreboard first with a two-out, two-RBI single in the second inning. The Jaspers tacked on three more runs in the third inning courtesy of an RBI single from senior Austin Sheffield, a sacrifice fly from Ramon Ortega and a RBI double from Kyle Murphy to push Manhattan ahead 5-0.
It proved to be more than enough run support for Giordano who complemented a brilliant season with the game of his career. Giordano was nearly untouchable by the Saints' batters as he set a career-high in strikeouts (13), did not allow an earned run, yielded only three hits and one walk in his third complete game of the year. It was only fitting that Giordano struck out the final batter in a memorable MAAC Tournament performance and his 20th career win.
The Jaspers worked Siena starter C.J. Sohl for all five earned runs. Murphy led Manhattan with a 2-for-3 performance at the plate, while Sheffield and sophomore shortstop Nick Camastro contributed two hits apiece.
Manhattan will receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. The 64-team bracket will be announced live on ESPN at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, May 30. The Regional hosts and sites will be announced at ncaa.com/cws at approximately 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 29.