SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts - Playing an unusual sequence of games because of bad weather on the weekend, the American International College baseball team split a doubleheader with Bentley University, 4-3 and 14-0, on Monday, April 20 at home and then fell 11-1 to Southern Connecticut State University on the road on Tuesday, April 21 in Northeast 10 Conference play.

AIC is now 14-26 with a 10-18 conference record.

The Yellow Jackets opened the scoring in the first game with three hits in the second frame; Sam Tanous drove in Cole Patterson with a knock to left field.

Bentley rebounded in a big way in the fourth, as Stan DeMartinis III smashed the very first pitch of the frame over the right-field fence. Brendan Sencaj followed with a double, but Alvin Gomez recovered with a groundout, strikeout, and foul out to keep the game tied.

That gave AIC a chance to retake the lead, and Patterson led off his team's turn with a six-pitch walk, then swiped second and third. That put him in position to score on a passed ball; all three extra bases came during Josh Frometa's at-bat. 

In the sixth, AIC added insurance runs. Patterson started it again, singling and stealing second, with Frometa walking behind him. Tanous laid down a sacrifice bunt, and two batters later, Aidan Streeter doubled to center to bring both runners home.

The Falcons were down to three outs, and fought back into the game; the first two hitters of the inning were hit by pitches, leading Romel Roca to come on to earn a save. A wild pitch advanced the runners and a groundout scored one, and then a walk and wild pitch put the tying run at second. Roca induced a flyout, but both runners advanced, making the score 4-3 and putting the tying run 90 feet away. It all came down to Roca against Nick Pappas, and the pitcher won the day, getting Pappas to ground out to Streeter at third to end the game.

Pappas was able to extract some revenge in game two, starting the scoring in the first inning with a home run that netted Bentley two runs. The Falcons added a run each in the second and third, but the game was much closer than the final score indicated; the last 10 Bentley runs came in the seventh inning, a frame that saw 13 Falcons come to the plate, with nine straight hitters reaching with two outs.

On the road the following day, AIC and Southern Connecticut were scoreless until the third when Zaid Vohra hit a solo shot with two outs. The Yellow Jackets negated that run in the fifth with one of their own as Patterson smacked a one-out double to left-center and advanced on a Frometa groundout before scoring when Tanous singled to right.

The rest of the game belonged to the Owls, however; they scored three in their half of the fifth, with two of those runs coming with two outs, and then added two more in the sixth, three in the seventh, and two in the eighth for the 11-1 final.

AIC will play its final regular season away series at Adelphi University, with two each on Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26. Both sets of games are slated for noon starts in Garden City, New York.