NORTHFIELD, Vt.- The Norwich baseball team hosted their regular season finale Sunday afternoon hosting Saint Joseph's College of Maine. Their first visit to Garrity Field in six years.

After the first two full innings of game one were scoreless, the Monks jumped ahead with a run in the third, and two more in the fourth. The Cadets would close the gap in the home half of the fourth. With a runner on third and two out, Owen Silk (North Haven, Conn.) would take Michael Bergeron deep down the line in left with a two-run shot to make it a one run game.

After that Bergeron kept the Norwich bats at bay, eventually finishing a complete game as Saint Joseph's would pull away down the stretch.
The Monks kept it going in game two jumping out to a quick two run lead. After a brief rain delay, a leadoff triple by Geffen Franus (Leesburg, Va.) in the third, he would come around on an RBI single by Michael Sabasteanski (Ashburn, Va.) to cut the lead in half. Two innings later, Norwich would take their first lead of the day. To start things off, Brock Carpenter (East Berlin, Pa.) shot the left center field gap for a double. Two batters later, Trevor Lussier (Lyndonville, Vt.) would go yard with a go ahead two run homer to right.

Soon after, the Monks would jump ahead again with a two spot in the sixth. Franus plated Jon Ringer (Cupertino, Calif.) in the sixth to close the gap, but Saint Joseph's would jump ahead by three heading into the bottom of the ninth.

To start things off, Dillan Garza (San Antonio, Texas) reached first on an error, before a single by Franus and a second free pass to Carpenter with no outs. Sabasteanski punched a hole in the left side of the infield to move everyone up a station, bringing home Garza. Franus would come home on a wild pitch soon after to make it a one run game. Later in the at bat, Lussier was hit by a pitch to load the bags again. A bases loaded walk to Tyler Callahan (Arlington, Mass.) tied the game and kept the bases loaded for pinch hitter Isaac Maldonado (Miami, Fla.). Maldonado would hit a sacrifice fly to center scoring Sabasteanski for the walk off victory, Norwich's first over the Monks since 2018.

Maldonado's game winning RBI comes after his fifth straight multi hit game in the opener. On the mound, the trio of Nick Beavin (Montpelier, Vt.), James Campbell (Havertown, Pa.), and David Cooper (Stockton, N.J.) limited Saint Joseph's to three combined hits and one earned run in three innings out of the bullpen.

The win cemented Norwich's first appearance in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Tournament in three years. Their first opponent in the double elimination tournament is Johnson & Wales on May 3 at 12 PM.