COCOA BEACH, Fla. – The Nichols College baseball team fell to #2 Salisbury, 19-7, Thursday morning in Florida. Nicholas Fowler (Salem, Mass.) hit his first career home run in the ninth inning for the Bison (3-2), who collected 13 hits in the game.

An Al Montalto (Wilmington, Mass.) RBI single gave the Bison a 1-0 first-inning lead, but the Sea Gulls cranked out 11 runs on five hits, including a trio of three-run homers, in the bottom of the frame, and added three more in the bottom of the second to take a 14-1 lead at the end of two.

Seven hits, including another pair of home runs, produced five more runs for the Sea Gulls in the fourth, but the Bison pitching staff held the Salisbury bats to three hits over the remainder of the game, working out of bases-loaded jams in the seventh and eighth to hold the Sea Gulls scoreless from the fifth on.

Nichols got two runs back in both the fifth and sixth, with Richard Burke (Newburyport, Mass.) and Daniel Smith (Verona, N.J.), who led off the sixth with walks, crossing on a George Sergi (Blackstone, Mass.) single to center. Pat Coakley (Charlton, Mass.) plated Smith with a sac fly in the eighth to make the score 19-6 before Fowler's homer in the ninth.

Michael Sannicandro (Upton, Mass.) took the loss in his first career appearance, allowing eight runs on four hits in the first third of an inning. Christopher Nemeskal (Swampscott, Mass.) came on for the next 2.2 innings, allowing 11 runs (8 earned) on eight hits while striking out two. Michael Rafferty (Framingham, Mass.) struck out three and allowed four hits from the fourth through seventh innings, and Dan Vreeland (Becket, Mass.) closed out the game with one hit and a strikeout in the eighth.

Nichols faces Richard Stockton Friday at 1 p.m. before a pair of games against Franciscan (1 p.m.) and Baruch (4 p.m.) on the final day of Spring Training Saturday. 

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