Winter Haven, FL – The D'Youville baseball team played a tough game on Monday evening, falling to the Minnesota Morris Cougars by the final score of 9-1.

Minnesota Morris began the game with a run in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead. The Spartans would come right back in the top of the second with Connor Truitt (Rochester, NY/Early College) led off with a single. He then stole second, and was driven in by Shane Critelli (Camden, NY/Camden) to tie the game at 1-1.

In the bottom of the inning, the Cougars would then retake the lead with a run scored. They added two more runs in the fourth, four in the sixth, and one in the eight on their way to a 9-1 victory.

Despite scoring one run, D'Youville hit very well in the game with nine total team hits. Four different players including Shane Critelli, Truitt, Justin Varney (Henrietta, NY/Rush-Henrietta), and Dylan Haak (Depew, NY/Depew) each tallied two hits. With his two hits, Haak has tied the all-time hits record for the program with 116.

On the mound, Brendan Burke (Collegeville, PA/Spring-Ford) had an excellent outing, going 3.0 innings, allowing no earned runs, striking out two with four hits. Behind him, Matt Critelli (Camden, NY/Camden) pitched 2.2 innings of relief and allowed three earned runs on four hits and struck out two. To close it out, Nick Jank (Orchard Park, NY/Canisius) pitched 2.1 innings, striking out a team high four and allowed only one earned run.

The Spartans will resume play after a day off on Wednesday, March 20 as they play Crown in a doubleheader starting at 1:45pm.