Winter Haven, FL – The D'Youville baseball team suffered a pair of losses to the Crown Storm on Thursday afternoon, falling in game one 8-3 and 8-4 game two.

Crown scored the first run of the game to take an early 1-0 in the top of the first inning. They then increased their lead to 2-0 in the top of the second, but the Spartans would begin to chip away.

In the bottom of the second, Patrick Mulligan (Buffalo, NY/Hutch Tech) reached first on an error. Two batters later, Brendan Burke (Collegeville, NY/Spring-Ford) doubled to left center, advancing Mulligan to third. Each of the base runners would advance a base as the Crown pitcher balked, scoring Mulligan and making the score 2-1.

The bottom of the third was led off by a Dylan Haak (Depew, NY/Depew) and he moved to second on a Travis Macrides (Manlius, NY/Fayetteville-Manlius) walk. Mulligan would come up big for the team again, singling to center field and scoring Haak from second. Haak's run tied the game at two with the Spartans not done yet.

For the third consecutive inning, D'Youville had a runner on base to lead off the inning. Burke walked and moved to third by a sac-bunt by Louis Reynolds (Batavia, NY/Notre Dame) and then an error allowed him to move to third. Haak then came to bat and singled to right center, scoring Burke from third and giving D'Youville their first lead of the game at 3-2.

However the Spartans weren't able to add any more runs to their total while Crown would score six runs in the fifth and six innings, giving them an 8-3 lead and they would win the game by that score.

Five different players had hits in the game, led by Haak with three. He he also added a run and an RBI, with Mulligan recording a hit, a run and a RBI. On the mound, Kevin Kabacinski (Buffalo, NY/St. Joe's) was strong in the game, striking out five in 5.2 innings of work. He allowed only five hits and two earned runs.

The second game started with D'Youville taking an early lead. Burke led off the inning with a single, followed by Braden Bova (Lancaster, NY/Saint Mary's) reaching base on an error. Reynolds would walk two batters later on a ball-four wild pitch, scoring Burke from third. In the next at-bat, Devon Kelly (Rochester, NY/Olympia) flew out to left, scoring Bova from third and giving the Spartans a 2-0 lead.

Crown cut their deficit in half to 2-1 in the bottom of the third, but then erupted for seven runs in the bottom of the fourth for an 8-2 lead. D'Youville would answer in the top of the seventh with two more runs.

Michael LiPani (Irondequoit, NY/Irondequoit) singled to left, followed by a Justin Brackna (Cheektowaga, NY/Maryvale) single. A Macrides single to right the scored LiPani, followed by a sac-fly from Mulligan that scored Brackna for a 8-4 deficit. The Spartans would run out of innings as D'Youville fell to Crown 8-4.

Macrides led the team in hitting with two hits, followed by LiPani, Brackna and Burke with one each. The team had six walks in the game, with three different players each scoring a run. Steve Vik (Hopkins, SC/Lower Richland) and Bova saw time on the mound for the Spartans.

The final game of the spring for the men comes on Friday, March 24 as they play Chicago at 2pm.