Box Score

Bellerose, NY (Apr. 10, 2013) – Colin Morris has always had a hose for an arm in the outfield.

Wednesday night, Morris (SR/Bridgeport, NY) put that rifle arm to the test and played the role of hero for the surging Purchase baseball team. The center fielder threw out the tying run at the plate, preventing St. Joseph's College-Brooklyn from evening the score. The dramatic final out sealed another stellar victory for the first-place Panthers, who held on for a 9-8 win – their fifth straight victory.

It was a memorable night at the Padavan-Preller Field. The Bears (13-6) saw a ninth inning rally come up short, as their tying run was gunned down at the plate to end the game, giving the Panthers (14-9) the victory. After a red-hot 11-1 start, the Bears are suffering their only losing streak of the season, their skid extending to four games.

Morris, who has been a hero several times during Purchase's recent hot stretch, was bombarded by his teammates in a walk-off celebration that has become customary for the 2013 installment of the Panthers.

Three days after getting the game-winning, walk-off hit vs. St. Joe's Patchogue on Sunday, Morris showed why is “one of the best defensive players in the conference and the region for the matter,” said head coach Bill Guerrero. After knocking down a home run from leaving the yard an inning earlier, Morris throws out the potential tying run in the bottom of the ninth on an attempted sac fly to center.

Offensively, the Panthers were led by Ronald Echavarria (SR/Bronx, NY), who went 4 for 4 with four RBI. The senior designated hitter launched his fourth homer of the season and fell a double shy of hitting for the cycle.

The Panthers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but the Bears answered with aggressive base running from Thomas McKenna and a Mike Cundari RBI single, which consequently saw him come around to score after a throwing error.  

Purchase broke the tie in the third inning when Echavarria drove in two runs with a triple to right field. The Panthers never trailed again.

Echavarria struck again in the fifth with a two-run bomb and the Panthers increased their lead to 7-2. Cundari countered in the bottom half with a two-run homer of his own and cut the deficit to 7-4.

Panthers pushed two more across in the top of the seventh, building another five-run cushion.

In the home half of the eighth inning, Vinny Rossi opened with a leadoff double followed by a Domenick Camerada walk. Zaretsky ripped an RBI double down the left field line scoring Rossi, and Camerada later scored on a sacrifice fly from McKenna, making a nice slide at home to elude the catchers tag and settled the score at 9-6, setting up the dramatic ninth inning. 

Needing three runs in their final at bat, the Bears cut the deficit to one. St. Joseph's had the bases loaded with one out and the tying and winning runs in scoring position when Brian Luebcke lifted a fly ball to center, Chris Pacifico tagged up and darted for home plate, but was thrown out by Morris who made a perfect throw to end the game.

Baseball will look to make it six and seven in a row this Saturday at MSMC before traveling to CMSV Sunday for back-to-back conference doubleheaders.

-SJC-BKLYN Sports Information Contributed to this report