NEW LONDON, N.H.- The Norwich Baseball team resumed Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) play Monday afternoon when they took a ride down Interstate 89 to face Colby-Sawyer in a pivotal twin bill that the two sides would split.

The victory in the opening contest resulted from a resounding comeback by the Cadets, as the Chargers held a 7-0 lead by the end of the fourth inning. Norwich began chipping away at the Colby-Sawyer advantage with three runs in the fifth. After a leadoff base hit for John O'Connor (Southington, Conn.), Michael Sabasteanski (Ashburn, Va.), and Alex DeTomasis (East Greenwich, R.I.) reached base on consecutive errors, the latter of which brought home O'Connor for the Cadets' first run of the day. Two batters later, Kevin Ohlsen (Shirley, N.Y.) plated Sabasteanski with an RBI single, which Brock Carpenter (East Berlin, Pa.) followed with a sacrifice fly to bring home DeTomasis.
The Chargers answered with a run in the home half of the fifth, but Norwich continued to chip away with two more runs in the sixth. A hit batsman and back-to-back base hits loaded the bases with one down before Jack Medhurst (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) drew a free pass to score Ryan Miller (Westhampton, N.Y.). In the next at bat, O'Connor came home on a wild pitch, making it a three-run game.

Colby-Sawyer scratched across another run in the sixth, stretching their lead to four, but were held off the scoreboard the rest of the way by the pitching duo of James Campbell (Havertown, Pa.) and Isaac Parker (Jay, Maine), who did not concede a hit in the final three innings. In his two and a third innings in relief, Campbell struck out four, earning the win, while Parker locked down the final two outs, earning his fourth save of the season.

With four runs on five hits in the seventh, Norwich tied the game. With one out, consecutive singles for Isaac Maldonado (Miami, Fla.) and Geffen Franus (Leesburg, Va.) forced a Charger pitching change. Soon after, a third straight base hit from Miller brought home Maldonado. Two batters later, Franus followed suit, scoring on an RBI single by Sabasteanski before Medhurst cleared the bases with a game-tying two-run triple.

The stalemate stood until the top of the ninth, where the Cadets completed the comeback. To lead off the inning, O'Connor was hit by a pitch and was sacrificed over to second. Two batters later, O'Connor came home on a Colby-Sawyer to give Norwich their first lead. After Jakob Hayes (Arlington, Texas) reached on the error and swiped second, he was doubled home by Ohlsen to make it a two-run contest, where the score stood.

Five different Cadets recorded multiple hits, including: Maldonado (2-5, Run, Double), Franus (2-5, Run), O'Connor (2-4, 3 Runs), Sabasteanski (2-4, Runs), and Ohlsen (2-5, 2 RBI, Double) while Medhurst led the way in RBI with three with two of them coming on the game tying three-bagger.

After the first three innings of game two went scoreless, Colby-Sawyer took a five-run lead in the fourth and went on to score two runs each in the final three innings to take the 11-1 win. The lone Norwich run came in the top of the eighth because of a passed ball. Sabasteanski continued his hot streak, going 3-4 at the plate.

The Cadets will continue GNAC play Tuesday afternoon when they host Anna Maria at 3 PM in their home finale.