Salem State takes MASCAC baseball title

It was sweet revenge for Salem State in the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference?s baseball championship on Sunday.
Freshman Dan Connors of Danvers scored on an error in the top of the ninth inning to give Salem State a 6-5 victory over defending champion Worcester State in the MASCAC final at Mass. Maritime?s Commodore Hendy Field.
It is the Vikings? second league title in the last three seasons and earns Salem State an automatic berth into the NCAA Division 3 Baseball Tournament.
The Vikings (25-13) were in a winner-take-all game with the Lancers after Worcester State had won, 9-6, earlier on Sunday.
SSU trailed, 4-2, through three innings of the second game but scored twice in the top of the fifth to tie the game. The team?s traded runs in the eighth on a Mike Davis sac fly for Salem and Nick Gikas? suicide squeeze for Worcester, setting the stage for a dramatic ninth.
Connors, a former star and teammate of Gikas at Danvers High, led off with a single and was bunted over to second. After taking third on a wild pitch, he started to race home on a suicide squeeze try. It failed and he was caught in a rundown, but the Lancers made an errant throw allowing Connors to scamper home.
Peabody?s Andrew McLaughlin (5-0) did the rest, as he completed 5 1/3 innings of one-hit relief by working around an error in the bottom of the ninth to seal the victory.
Lynn?s Ryan Beliveau had a pair of hits for Salem in the title game. Former Bishop Fenwick standout David Ruggiero drove in a pair of runs in his final collegiate game for Worcester State.
Beliveau and former St. Mary?s teammate Matt Turmenne serve as co-captains for Salem State.The Vikings now await their destination and opponent in the Division 3 tournament; brackets will be announced next Monday.