BOX SCORE MANCHESTER, N.H. – The University of New Haven baseball team saw its 2013 season come to an end on Saturday afternoon with an 11-0 loss to top seed and nationally-ranked No. 8 Wilmington in the NCAA Division II East Region Championship hosted by Southern New Hampshire. The Chargers finish the spring with a record of 34-16.
 
New Haven’s 34 wins are the third-most in program history, two shy of the 36 victories accumulated by the 1989 team that finished as a National Finalist. The Chargers also won their first-ever Northeast-10 Championship in five seasons as a member of the conference and won their first NCAA regional game since 2003. This was New Haven’s 28th NCAA regional appearance and 33rd national postseason trip overall. The Chargers have played in 17 College World Series.
 
In today’s game, Stephen Clout (Bristol, Conn./Bristol Eastern) and Chris DeMorais (West Hartford, Conn./Conard) each doubled to lead the hitting corps, while Brendan O’Reilly added an infield single
 
The Wildcats started the scoring with a pair of unearned runs in the top of the second inning. A two-out throwing error plated one run and put runners on the corners. Wilmington extended its lead to 2-0 on a designed double steal, and the margin grew to 5-0 in the third frame when Matt Lopes chopped an RBI single through the left side and another defensive miscue allowed two more unearned tallies to cross the plate.
 
O’Reilly got the first hit of the day for New Haven with one down in the bottom of the fourth inning, but was stranded at second base. The Wildcats tacked another run on in the fifth on an RBI single off the bat of Brandon Payne, and added five more unearned runs in the sixth to open up an 11-0 advantage that proved final.
 
John Melville (Ulster Park, N.Y./Kingston) started on the mound and took the loss, falling to 3-2, with two earned runs allowed and five strikeouts in 4.2 innings of work before being spelled by Frank Vilacha (Dartmouth, Mass./Dartmouth) for the next 1.1 frames. After tossing a scoreless seventh inning today, Jason Lewicki (Milford, Conn./Foran) finished his season with 17 innings pitched and a 0.00 ERA. Taylor Candage (Portland, Maine/Deering) capped his Charger career by hanging zeroes in the eighth and ninth stanzas.
 
Frank Samluk moved to 5-1 with the win for the Wildcats (42-13). The right-hander allowed three hits and one walk while striking out 12 in his seven shutout innings of action.
 
Candage, Clout, Joe Romanelli (Baldwin, N.Y./Holy Trinity) and Peter Jay (Shelton, Conn./Shelton) all completed their New Haven careers today.