RINDGE, N.H. (March 25, 2022) -- For much of the afternoon, the Franklin Pierce University baseball team had a pitchers' duel on its hands in the weekend opener against Northeast-10 Conference foe Bentley. Then, suddenly, it did not. The game was tied 1-1 after five, and the Ravens held a 3-2 lead going to the last of the seventh, before five in the seventh and four more in the eighth turned things into a rout. Sophomore Randy Flores (Brooklyn, N.Y.), sophomore Jose Savinon (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and junior Graham Smith (Wilmington, Mass.) all went deep in the 12-2 victory for Franklin Pierce at Pappas Field.

With the win, Franklin Pierce improves to 10-5 (1-0 NE10), while Bentley falls to 5-11 (0-2 NE10). The two teams will meet again for a noon doubleheader on Saturday and the final game of the series is set for 1 p.m. on Sunday.

It was Bentley which opened the scoring, with a long ball of its own, to begin the top of the third inning. Senior Liam Sears went an estimated 405 feet, just to the left of straightaway center field, for his third home run of the season.

Franklin Pierce evened things up in the last of the fifth, and took the lead with two in the sixth. In the fifth, Flores led off with a 380-foot blast to right field, his second of the year. With two outs in the sixth, sophomore Ryan Lavelle (East Longmeadow, Mass.) was hit by a pitch and Smith followed with a 365-foot home run which narrowly cleared the fence in left-center, his first of the campaign.

Bentley got one back in the top of the seventh. Junior Tim Zupkus pulled a one-out double down the left-field line, moved to third on a single by junior Eddy Beauregard and scored when sophomore Jackson Walonis lifted a sacrifice fly to center field.

Franklin Pierce got into the Bentley bullpen in the seventh and then broke the game open with five in the seventh and four more in the eighth. In the seventh, graduate student Charles Lebron (Brooklyn, N.Y.) pulled an RBI double inside the bag at first and down the line, junior Jake Miller (Waltham, Mass.) dumped an RBI single into left-center, Lavelle lifted a sacrifice fly to center, and junior Joel Lara (Boston, Mass.) capped the inning by dropping a two-run single inside the left-field line. In the eighth, Miller had an RBI double, sophomore Hunter Wilichoski (Hamilton, Mass.) hit a sacrifice fly, and Savinon drove a two-run home run some 390 feet, just to the right of the scoreboard in right-center.

The bevy of late runs came in support of sophomore right-hander Chaz Powell (Stamford, Conn.), who threw 97 pitches (63 strikes) over seven innings of work on the way to the win (2-1). He allowed two runs on three hits, walked one and struck out six, while facing just 24 batters.

Freshman right-hander Marc Cedrone (1-2) took the ball and threw six innings, plus the first three batters in the seventh, on the hill for Bentley. He surrendered six runs on four hits, walked five, hit three batters and struck out five while taking the loss.