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OREM, UT—Jonathan Carpen's opposite field grand slam down the right field line in the top of the ninth inning was the difference for Chicago State, which survived the first elimination game of the 2012 Great West Conference baseball tournament, topping NJIT, 11-7, Wednesday morning at Brent Brown Ballpark on the campus of Utah Valley University.
 
Chicago State (13-39), the seventh-seeded team in the eight-team tournament, stays alive for another elimination matchup later on Wednesday against the loser of regular season champ Utah Valley and #5 Houston Baptist, two teams that won their tournament openers on Tuesday. Chicago State had lost its opener vs. #2 Texas-Pan American, 10-4, on Tuesday.
 
NJIT, which split its four regular season games against Chicago State, was in the losers' bracket of the double-elimination tournament after falling 1-0 vs. North Dakota on opening day. As a result, the Highlanders end 2012 at 25-27, their best record in six seasons of competition at the Division I level. The 25 wins were five more than the old DI-era high of 20, set just last year. And the 16-12 Great West Conference mark, good for a second-place tie and the third seed in the tournament, was NJIT's best in three seasons in the GWC, after going 9-18 in the first conference season in 2010 and then 12-16 in 2011.
 
You won't find the name “Sisyphus” anywhere on the box score, but on Wednesday, NJIT could identify with the mythological Greek king who was sentenced to an eternal fate of pushing a huge boulder up a steep hill, only to have the boulder roll back down just before he could reach the peak.
 
Trailing 4-0 before they ever came to bat in the first inning, the Highlanders closed the gap to 4-3 through three innings, only to fall behind again, 7-3, by the middle of the sixth. NJIT clawed back gradually, with a run in the sixth, two in the seventh, and one in the eighth inning that finally tied the score at 7-7. And NJIT had the bases loaded with two out in the bottom of the eighth, but the frame ended on a line drive out.
 
Having tied, but not gone ahead, the figurative boulder rolled back down the hill on the Highlanders, as Chicago State struck for four runs in the top of the ninth inning when Jonathan Carpen, one of two senior Carpen brothers on the Cougars, hit a 3-1 offering over the fence with one out.
 
Having left the bases loaded in the eighth and one man on in the bottom of the ninth, NJIT, with 13 hits, five walks, and two hit by pitch, finished with 13 runners left on base to just three for victorious Chicago State, which had 11 hits, including four doubles and the huge game-winning homer.
 
On this day, NJIT also witnessed a mysterious outcome that happens at all levels of baseball, as two of its best pitchers, both whom have been at the top of their games lately, experienced struggles on the same day.
 
Starting ace left-hander Tripp Davis, who, 11 days earlier had shut out the same Chicago State batting order on one hit, matched his season high for runs allowed (7) and earned runs allowed (6) in facing the Cougars a second time around. Chicago State's 10 hits tied the second-highest total yielded this year by Davis (the high was 11 in a win over Texas-Pan American).
 
Davis, a top starting pitcher since he arrived at NJIT, was 4-1 with a 1.94 earned run average in seven 2012 conference starts, as he earned repeat first-team all-Great West honors. Even with Wednesday's line of: 7 innings, 10 hits, 7 runs (6 earned), 7 strikeouts, 1 walk, he finishes the year 5-2 overall, with a team-best 3.29 ERA in a team-leading 98.1 innings.
 
The losing pitcher on Wednesday was ace reliever Austin McAuliffe, another junior left-hander. McAuliffe, who took over on the mound to begin the eighth inning, set down the Cougars 1-2-3 in the eighth.
 
That ran McAuliffe's string of consecutive scoreless innings to 12.1, covering 10 appearances. In fact, he had allowed one run in his previous 12 appearances and the scoreless eighth inning lowered his ERA to 2.14 (five earned runs in 21 innings).
 
But the string of clean innings ended with one swing of the bat in the ninth on the grand slam by Jonathan Carpen, as four runs crossed the plate, almost as many as the five McAuliffe had allowed in the entire season up to that point. As a result, he took his first loss (2-1) and his final ERA jumped to 3.68, which finishes third on the team behind Davis and Mark Leiter, Jr. (3.56), who allowed just one run in Tuesday's 1-0 loss to open the tournament.
 
Of NJIT's 13 hits on Wednesday, 10 came from the first four men in the batting order, as freshman 2B Mike Rampone and senior 2nd-team all-GWC catcher Bryan Bleakley, playing his last college game, each went 3-for-5. Rampone hit his 10th double and Bleakley, who also doubled, led the team in that category (16), plus home runs (9), runs batted in (36) and slugging percentage (.542).
 
Ed Charlton, the freshman center fielder, batting leadoff, was 2-for-6 and finished a season that saw him named New Jersey College Baseball Association Division I Rookie of the Year with a .315 average to go with 15 doubles (2nd on NJIT), two triples (tied for second), two home runs, and 31 RBI (3rd), along with a team-best 15 stolen bases in 18 tries.
 
Third baseman Matt Weckerle was 2-for-5 on Wednesday, finishing a fine sophomore year at .313 (3rd on the team), with 10 doubles, three triples (1st), three homers and 34 RBI (2nd).
 
Farther down the batting order, 1B Tom Bouck was 1-for-4, but his one hit was a two-run home run that keyed NJIT's three-run third inning and trimmed the deficit to 4-3 at the time. Bouck, a sophomore who will look to reach base more consistently (.243 average), produced fine power numbers, with 10 doubles, six home runs (2nd on the team), and 30 RBI (4th).
 
And fifth-year senior James D'Aloia wrote a remarkable ending to his career, going 1-for-3 with two walks in his final game on Wednesday. The one hit was a triple and he drove in two runs and scored one.
 
D'Aloia, whose freshman year was 2008, played that year, as well as 2009 2010, when he had his best hitting year to that point (.275, 8 doubles, 2 home runs, 16 RBI), plus playing professional-caliber defense in center field.
 
Slated to wrap up his career in 2011, he sustained a leg injury warming up before the first game and instead spent much of what was supposed to be his senior year on crutches. A two-time GWC all-academic honoree, he spent the year focusing on completing his degree and rehabbing his injury.
 
This season, he came back for his last year of college eligibility and was the team's best hitter in the early going, batting over .400 through the first 14 games. He was still hitting in the mid-.300s when he suffered an injury to his left (non-throwing) shoulder in April. After some rest, he attempted a comeback in early May, but the injury was such that the shoulder would pop out when he attempted baseball activities and even some times as innocuous as pre-game stretching.
 
Having played two games since apparently shutting down after April 21 with the injury, D'Aloia returned for one inning as a defensive replacement in the last regular season series. However, he started both GWC Tournament games and got the triple on Wednesday. He finishes batting .288 in 36 of the team's 52 games, with five doubles, two triples, two home runs, and 24 runs batted in. Despite missing 16 full games, he led the 2012 Highlanders in bases-on-balls (22) and his .419 on-base percentage was best among players with more than 35 plate appearances.
 
Chicago State got a 3-for-4 day, including a double, from its ninth-place hitter, freshman DH Aveeno Nasiloski. The Cougars got two hits apiece from Jonathan Carpen, the senior shortstop, who drove in five runs, and from senior catcher Jack Bobillo. Five other Cougars got one hit each, as eight of the nine starter got at least one hit.
 
The winning pitcher in relief was senior RHP Andrew Watson (2-7), who had a loss and a save in relief in four games when CSU hosted NJIT in mid-May. On Wednesday, he pitched the last 1.2 innings, including stranding the bases loaded in the eighth, and allowed one hit and two walks, while striking out two.
 
Chicago State starter Dylan Sterrett, a sophomore, went 5.2 innings and allowed eight hits and four runs, while striking out five and walking two. Sterrett hit two batters with pitches. He was followed by senior Steven O'Hair, who went 1.2 innings and yielded three runs on four hits, a walk, and a strikeout.
 
NJIT's Davis had allowed Chicago State only one hit in a 13-0 run-rule win in Chicago on May 12, but it didn't take long on Wednesday for the Cougars, a dangerous hitting team, to show it was a new day.
 
The first three batters—Albert Carpen, Mattingly Romanin, and Jonathan Carpen—singled to open the game with Albert scoring on his brother's single for the first run. The fourth batter, Jeremy Rataczyk, then doubled for two more runs and then, after two strikeouts, Bobillo doubled to make it 4-0, CSU.
 
Davis worked around a leadoff double for Nasiloski in the second inning and then pitched a scoreless third, but Sterrett kept the Highlanders off the board until the bottom of the third. Rampone led off with a single and, after a force out, Bleakley hit his double, putting two runners in scoring position with one out. Jeff Peterson then hit an RBI ground out and Tom Bouck launched a two-run homer to right center field to pull NJIT to within a run, 4-3.
 
The Cougars got one of the runs back in the next half-inning, as Ryan Malhotra hit a leadoff double and went to third on a single by Nasiloski. Albert Carpen followed with a sacrifice fly, extending CSU's advantage to 5-3.
 
That's where the score stayed until the top of the sixth inning when the Cougars picked up two more runs, one earned and one unearned on the only error of the day for either team. The first run, by William Hill, who led off the inning with a single, scored on the error and Albert Carpen drove in the next run with his second sacrifice fly of the game.
 
Down 7-3, NJIT got a free run in the bottom half of the sixth, as D'Aloia drew a two-out walk and advanced one base at a time all the way to the plate on three wild pitches in the inning.
 
Davis finished off his day on the mound for the Highlanders with a 1-2-3 seventh inning and the Highlanders crawled two runs closer in the bottom of the inning to trail, 7-6. Bleakley opened with a single and Peterson walked behind him before two NJIT outs. D'Aloia then tripled to right center field for the two runs, but, representing the tying run, he was left on third base.
 
It was three up, three down in the top of the eighth inning for McAuliffe in his first inning of work out of the NJIT bullpen. In the bottom half, Charlton singled leading off and moved up to second on an out. Weckerle then drove in the tying run with a single.
 
Watson took the mound for Chicago State and Bleakley greeted him with a single, moving Weckerle ahead to third as the potential go-ahead run with one out. After an out, Bleakley stole second, his second theft of the year and just the third in his career.
 
With Tom Bouck having homered earlier in the game, Chicago State and coach Michael Caston elected to walk him and load the bases. The next batter, John Bouck, Tom's older brother, hit a line drive to shortstop for the final out, keeping the score at 7-7.
 
After a strikeout to open the ninth inning, Chicago State's Nasiloski singled and the next two batters walked, bringing up Jonathan Carpen. Listed at 5-9, 174 pounds, Carpen has pop in his bat and he showed it, driving the grand slam for his fifth home run of the season.
 
Back down by four runs for the third time in the game, NJIT opened what would be its last licks of the season with a walk by D'Aloia. But Watson retired the next three batters, the final two on strikeouts, to close the door on the Highlanders and their 2012 season.
 
Five seniors completed their career at NJIT: Bleakley, Bouck, Anthony Caiola, D'Aloia, and Reid Okita. They leave having been part of marked improvement in building a program that began Division I competition in 2007. In D'Aloia's freshman year (2008), the final record was 5-47 and the next year, when the others were freshmen, NJIT was 4-33. The team improved to 13 wins in 2010, to 20 in 2011, and now, their senior season record ends at 25-27.