POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - The Bard College baseball team defeated Vassar College, 4-2, on Sunday to clinch second place in the Liberty League's East Division.

The Raptors will host Rochester Institute of Technology, the third place team from the West Division, in a best-of-three series May 7-8 with the winner advancing to the Liberty League playoffs.

Bard got great pitching performances on Sunday, and they needed them in a tight game. First year Andrew Cuschieri worked out of several jams and gave up two runs over five innings. Evan Matthews provided two innings of no-hit relief with two strikeouts, and Murphy Foss closed it out with two innings of one-hit relief with three strikeouts. Michael Hannan's solo homer in the seventh broke a 2-2 tie and provided the game-winning RBI.

"Cuschieri was great and that's two in a row for him," Bard coach Andy Salvatore said. "Evan got back to himself a bit, and Foss was fantastic again."

Bard will host RIT on Saturday at 1 in a doubleheader. If a third game is necessary to determine who goes to the Liberty League playoffs, it'll be played on Sunday at noon at Honey Field.

"We played RIT very early in the season," Salvatore said. "We are both probably very different teams now than we were back then. We're going to play our brand of baseball and see what happens."
 

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LIBERTY LEAGUE CROSSOVER SERIES

Union (East #4) at Ithaca (West #1)
RPI (East #3) at Rochester (West #2) 
Clarkson (West #4) at Skidmore (East #1)
RIT (West #3) at Bard (East #2)
(The four winners go to the Liberty League playoffs May 12-14)
 
Vassar (East #5) at St. Lawrence (West #5)