ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – The Bard baseball team limited the damage from the New Paltz Hawks early on, but couldn't piece together enough offense to win on Wednesday afternoon. Bard had nine hits and four walks in the effort.

The Hawks scored one run in each of the first three innings. New Paltz had an RBI single in the first off of Graham Benway, who pitched 3.1 innings and kept the ball on the ground, pitching to five ground outs, three fly outs, and a strikeout. The Hawks pulled off a double steal to score their second run. To begin the bottom half of the second inning, Jamie Fryer and Gavin Gonzalez reached base in back-to-back plate appearances but were not driven in. 

The Hawks hit two singles to start the fourth before Benway recorded his last out, and a third single from their nine-hole hitter forced Bard to turn to their bullpen. Dylan Conte finished out the inning, inducing a pop-up to allow the Raptors' bats to go to work. Bryant Elliott got his first hit of the season, a single the opposite way. After a Fryer flyout, Gonzalez attacked a 3-1 pitch, driving a ball to left field for another single, but the Raptors were unable to score a run.

Kyle Palleschi pitched a 1-2-3 inning for the Raptors in the fifth. Emmett O'Brien put Bard on the scoreboard with a sacrifice fly to bring home Mike Lynch, who led off the inning with a double. Palleschi continued through the sixth inning, stranding the bases loaded to limit the damage to two runs. Gonzalez drove in Elliott on a hard-struck two-out double to left field after Elliott was hit by a pitch earlier in the inning. New Paltz tacked on insurance runs in each of the next three innings and shut out the Raptors in the final three frames.

Elliott received a warm ovation from the crowd as he exited the game in the top of the ninth, finishing his season as the team leader on the mound, ranking first in ERA, starts, innings pitched, and strikeouts. In his career, he finished second in program history in saves (4), third in innings pitched (154.2), and third in strikeouts (162). Also making history was Gonzalez, who finished his career as the program's leader in hit by pitches, with 41.

This was the final Bard game in the careers of Spencer Azzara, Sam Dumper, Bryant Elliott, Jimmy Famularo, Gavin Gonzalez, and Mike Lynch.