MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina - American International College Head Baseball Coach Nick Callini became the third coach in the history of AIC to win 300 games as the Yellow Jackets split a four-game series with the University of Bridgeport, winning 7-0 and falling 2-0 on Saturday, February 28 and exchanging 8-7 results on Sunday, March 1.

AIC is 2-6 to start the season.

The opening game of the series was won in part by a dominating performance on the mound by rookie hurler Leo Vitale. He scattered 10 baserunners across his seven innings of work, securing his first collegiate win and shutout in the same contest. Josh Frometa's first-inning RBI single to score Yeudy Ramirez proved the deciding factor offensively as a result, aided by Cole Patterson with multiple RBI hits, a solo home run by Wesley Alfonso, an Aidan Streeter RBI that scored Patterson, and a two-run double by Ramirez.

Offense was much harder to come by in the second game; Streeter had two of just four hits for AIC, and while Austin Rhodes pitched well, allowing just six baserunners in six frames, the Purple Knights scored once in the fourth and once in the fifth to grab the win.

If the first two games were defined by pitching, the third and fourth were based much more around what the batters and fielders did. AIC's defense surrendered six unearned runs early, and yet the Yellow Jackets nearly came back to win thanks to a multi-homer showing by Richie Segura, who went deep in the third and then again in the seventh. Ramirez, Frometa, and Sam Tanous drove in runs as well, and AIC had the tying run at the dish in the seventh but could not score, falling 8-7.

Both teams went deep in the second frame of the finale, as AJ Quinn countered a two-run shot for Bridgeport with one of his own. The Purple Knights pulled ahead 5-2 after four, but the Yellow Jackets exploded in the fifth for five runs, as Peyton Torre smacked a pinch-hit RBI double, Streeter followed with an RBI single, and then both came home as Alfonso left the yard again to put AIC up 7-5.

Bridgeport again took advantage of miscues in the seventh, scoring two more unearned to tie the game, but that merely delayed the inevitable. Torre led off with a single and was sacrificed over. Bridgeport wisely avoided Alfonso, giving him a free pass, but after a strikeout, an error by the Purple Knights allowed Torre to score, giving AIC the win. 

Brandon Morrison earned the win, allowing just one hit in the seventh despite the two unearned runs; Romel Roca had gone 2.1 shutout frames and allowed just one walk against three strikeouts.

Callini reached the 300-victory plateau in that win, and in doing so joined a short but illustrious list of coaches to achieve the feat at AIC. AIC Athletics Hall of Famers Judy Groff and Gary Wright were previously the only two to do so all at AIC. Groff earned her 300th win combined between softball and women's volleyball in the fall of 1983, and her 300th win with softball alone in the spring of 1988. Wright's 300 wins all came with ice hockey, and he hit the milestone with a 2-1 win over Army West Point on February 7, 2011.

AIC returns to action with a four-game series at Palm Beach Atlantic University beginning Friday, March 6 at 6:00 p.m.