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The Jumbos celebrate after receiving the NESCAC championship plaque
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AMHERST – The Tufts baseball team, by virtue of their 2-0 mark heading into the final day of competition, won the rain-shortened 2011 NESCAC Championship to capture their second consecutive conference crown.
Today's 2011 NESCAC Championship final between Tufts and Bowdoin, originally scheduled for 10 am, was delayed for nearly three and a half hours before starting, but was soon cancelled due to heavy rain and unplayable field conditions. NESCAC's rain-shortened results policy was enacted and the Jumbos were declared the champions. Their 4-2 win over Bowdoin in 12 innings on Saturday in game four of the tournament was the determining result.
Tufts and Bowdoin, who finally took the field for today's final shortly after 1 pm, could not get through the first inning before the game was called.
Tufts had put five runs on the board in the first inning of the final. Senior David LeResche (St. Louis MO) led off with an infield single to short before fellow senior David Orlowitz (Wakefield, MA) ripped a ball to right, putting two aboard. Bowdoin starter Evan Farley (Hampden, ME) then hit junior Sam Sager (Cranston, RI), loading the bases for senior Chase Rose (Paradise Valley, AZ), who hammered a ground-rule double to center, plating LeResche and Orlowitz.
With the bases again full with just one out, freshman Nick Cutsumpas (White Plains, NY) hit a grounder to third, pushing across another tally before sophomore Tom Howard (Rockville Centre, NY) belted a bases-clearing, two-out double to right to extend the margin to five just prior to the stoppage.
Tufts had won its tournament opener against Middlebury College 14-2 on Friday afternoon, before defeating the Polar Bears 4-2 in yesterday's 12-inning affair. The Jumbos, now 26-7-1 overall, will receive the league's automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Bowdoin, which went 2-1 in the 2011 tournament with a loss to Tufts and a pair of wins over host Amherst College, sits at 24-14 overall on the year and will wait to hear about a possible at-large bid.
This is the third Tufts title overall, including a rain-shortened win at home in 2002.
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