Trinity Baseball Plays Wesleyan
in NESCAC Tournament Friday

 Trinity College

Hartford, Conn., May 7 -- The Trinity College baseball team, which finished the 2001-02 regular season as the second-place team in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) East Division, will visit NESCAC West first-place finisher Wesleyan on Friday, May 10 in its first round of the NESCAC Championship Tournament. The game will be played at 3 p.m. at Babson College, with tournament host and NESCAC East division winner Tufts entertaining Williams in the other game Friday.

Junior Jayme Dorr

The tournament is a round-robin, double-elimination format with the winners of Friday’s games playing on Sat., May 11 at 10:30 a.m. at Tufts, and Friday’s losers facing off in an elimination game on Sat., May 11 at 10:30 a.m. at Babson. The remaining games will be played at Tufts on May 11 and May 12 with the tourney champion receiving the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament.

The Bantams, coached by Bill Decker, posted a 23-9 overall record and an 8-4 mark in the NESCAC East. Trinity boasts three of the top three starting pitchers in the NESCAC, led by junior All-American candidate Jonah Bayliss (Williamstown, Mass.). Bayliss, a potential pick in the MLB draft in June, is 7-1 in 56 innings this spring with 78 strikeouts and a 2.25 ERA. Sophomore Kevin Tidmarsh (Meriden, Conn.) is 4-1 with 38 strikeouts and a 2.91 ERA in 43.1 innings, while freshman righty Mark Tremblay (Hooksett, N.H.) is 3-1 with two saves and 33 strikeouts in 35 innings. Senior co-captain Greg Spanos (Auburn, Mass.) and classmate Mark Mahoney (Newton, Mass.) are 7-4 with 56 strikeouts in 12 starts between them.

The Trinity offense batted .336 as a unit during the regular season, powered by junior infielder Kurt Piantek (Wallingford, Conn.) who set new Trinity season records for home runs (11) and RBI (50). Piantek is batting .369 with 45 hits, a team-high 35 runs, and 10 doubles, while freshman catcher Andrew Fries (Dublin, Ohio) has a team-high .446 average with 33 hits, 23 RBI, and three homers, and Spanos is hitting .351 with team-highs of 46 hits and 13 doubles.

Six other Bantam regulars batted over .300, including junior catcher Rob Dolliver (Norwich, Conn.) at .348 (31 hits, 10 doubles, three homers), and junior 3B Jayme Dorr (Osterville, Mass.) at .336 (37 hits, , 11 doubles, five homers, 31 RBI), and senior co-captain SS Andrew Freimuth (Bristol, Conn.) at .333 (39 hits, 10 doubles, 26 RBI).

Wesleyan, coached by Mark Woodworth, is 20-14 overall and 10-2 in the NESCAC West, after Trinity swept them on May 4 in Hartford. Senior tri-captain 3B David Bushnell (South Dennis, Mass.) leads the Cardinal offense with a .402 batting average, a team-record 53 hits, and 11 doubles. Junior Nate Whalen (Chicago, Ill.) is 5-2 on the mound with a 3.81 ERA in 49.2 innings pitched.