May 20, 2004 

MANSFIELD, CT - The Amherst College baseball team got a valiant pitching effort from senior co-captain Duncan Webb (Lynn, MA) and a pair of solo home runs from sophomore Rob Anderson (Winnetka, IL) and senior Brandon Cody (Boston, MA) but came up just short in a 5-2 loss at four-time Division III National Champion Eastern Connecticut State University in the first round of NCAA Regional play on Thursday. In the double elimination format, the Jeffs (19-17) now move on to the losers' bracket, where they'll play the loser of Thursday's second regional matchup between Western New England College and Endicott College, Friday at noon. 

Webb gave up a two-out solo home run to sophomore Marc Garofalo (S. Kingstown, RI) in the second inning but cruised until the sixth. Meanwhile, Anderson knotted the score at 1-1 with his first career round-tripper, a leadoff shot in the third, and Cody gave the Jeffs a 2-1 lead with a solo blast on the first pitch of the sixth inning, his first of the season. 

Eastern Connecticut, now 36-9 on the season and ranked fourth nationally, tied the score at 2-2 on the fourth solo home run of the game, a towering shot over the leftfield wall by junior Scott Hayward (Meriden, CT) in the bottom of the sixth inning, and then took a 3-2 lead with yet another solo shot by sophomore Chris DeSantis (Shrewsbury, MA) in the bottom of the seventh. The Warriors managed one more insurance run off Webb and tacked on another off Amherst sophomore reliever Joe Vladeck (Washington, DC), cementing the victory and securing a winners' bracket matchup against either Babson College or Bridgewater State, Friday at 3:30 p.m. 

Sophomore southpaw Ryan DiPietro (Berlin, CT), who entered the game with the best ERA in the nation (0.71), was stellar on the mound for Eastern Connecticut, striking out 16 and scattering just six Amherst hits, running his record to 9-0 with his fifth complete game of the season. 

Webb dropped to 4-5 with the loss. 

Box Score/Play-by-Play