Box Score

MARIETTA, Ohio — After a rocky start, Salisbury has clearly played like the best team in the 2014 NCAA Division III Mideast Regional.

Now the Sea Gulls are just one win away from advancing to the NCAA Baseball Championship, which begins play May 23 at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, Wis. It would be Salisbury's fourth appearance.

Salisbury, who is 3-0 in regional action, defeated Widener 5-2 behind the strong pitching of Pete Grasso and Connor Shockley at Marietta College's Don Schaly Stadium Sunday. Now the Sea Gulls will wait to see who they play at 9:45 a.m. Monday. If Salisbury (36-7) loses that game and winner-take-all second game will be played 40 minutes after the conclusion.

"For the 14 years we've been doing this we want to pitch and play defense," said Salisbury coach Doug Fleetwood. "We didn't hit very well today. I thought their kid kept us off balance and we were hitting off our front foot too much. But we played good defense and got good pitching and that's why we're playing tomorrow."

When the tournament opened Wednesday, Fleetwood was not pleased the Sea Gulls almost blew a five-run lead to John Carroll. Salisbury held on for a 9-8 win. Now he believes his squad is playing the type of ball necessary to win the regional.

He said Salisbury will throw ace Brett Collacchi (11-1) on Monday.

"He's going right off the bat," Fleetwood said. "Winning two on the final day is not as hard as it sounds. It's hard to win the first one. That's the tough one. If you lose that game the shift happens real fast."

Widener coach Mike LaRosa said he was a bit surprised to see Grasso get the start over Shockley.

"But it worked out well for them," he said.

Fleetwood said he didn't have an epiphany before the game, instead he thought it would help Grasso settle into the game as the designate hitter as well.

"We knew we wanted to throw these two kids today and it really worked out for us," he said. "Both of those guys did a nice job for us."

Shockley threw the final 5 2/3 innings, allowed one run and improved to 8-0.

"Pete did a great job of starting us off and if that's what was needed for me to come in then I was ready," Shockley said. "Our defense really kept us in it today and came up with a couple of double plays that were huge."

It was those double plays, two errors and some shoddy base running that cost Widener a serious chance of winning. LaRosa said his team hadn't made those type of mistakes in a few weeks.

"Salisbury is a very good team and against a team like that they're going to capitalize on mistakes," he said. "If we can get back to our game and what we did that allowed us to get here we'll be in a good position."

Salisbury took advantage of a Widener miscue in the second inning and took an early 2-0 lead. Jordan Gowe, who reached on the error by Nicholas Enos, scored on Ken O'Neill's single. Austin Barefoot also scored on Kyle Hayman's single off of Joe Santone.

Grasso, who had not gone more than four innings in a game this season, lasted 3 1/3 innings. He was pulled for Shockley in the fourth after Enos reached third and Justin Healey was on first with one out.

The first batter Shockley faced — Sam Christie — executed a perfect safety squeeze to knock in Enos as Widener cut the lead to 2-1.

"The bunt was something we couldn't really control, but after that getting the ground ball was huge and getting out of the inning," Shockley said. "I think that set the tone for the rest of the game and limiting them."

The Sea Gulls answered back in the bottom half of the inning with two more runs to take a 4-1 lead.

With two outs and runners on second and third, Grasso — who remained in the game as the designated hitter — ripped a single to center that scored Bill Root and Hayman.

Widener cut into the lead with a run in the sixth, but Salisbury extended its lead back to three in the seventh when Johnny Schiotis scored on a throwing error by Enos.

Hayman was Salisbury's big offensive threat Sunday as he went 4-for-5 with one RBI and a run.

"We've always got someone stepping up … we're playing for these seniors and we want to keep it going," Hayman said. "We're not satisfied. We're not sitting back. The seniors on this team went to the World Series and they took two on the last day. So we know it can happen."

Michael Riverso and Enos each had three hits for Widener.