OLD WESTBURY, NY—NYIT used late runs in both games of a Saturday non-conference baseball doubleheader to sweep visiting NJIT, 2-0 in 9 innings and 7-6 in 7 innings, at Angelo Lorenzo Memorial Field on the NYIT campus on Long Island.
 
The sweep lifts NYIT to 17-18 on the season, while NJIT falls to 13-23, including 7-18 in away games. The Highlanders have lost eight games since April 8 and the opponent has scored the game-winning run in the sixth inning or later in seven of those eight defeats.
 
The 2-0 loss in Saturday's opener was the third time in their last three defeats that the Highlanders fell in walk-off fashion after Florida Gulf Coast walked off with ninth-inning wins last Saturday and Sunday in the Atlantic Sun Conference series between the teams. A 14-3 home win over Fairleigh Dickinson on April 19 was a welcome respite for NJIT.
 
Saturday's second game at NYIT wasn't a walk-off loss, but the Bears scored one in the bottom of the sixth inning to break a 6-6 tie and then winning pitcher Brandon Alberto (3-1) blanked the Highlanders in the seventh inning to secure the doubleheader sweep.
 
By mutual agreement, both games of the non-conference doubleheader were scheduled for seven innings, but Saturday's opener wasn't settled until the bottom of the ninth, when Bears freshman 1B Jake Lebel hit a two-out, two-run walk-off home run, making NJIT's starting pitcher Sean Lubreski (4-5) the hard-luck losing pitcher after one of the best pitching efforts for the Highlanders since they began Division I baseball competition in the 2007 season.
 
If the game had gone the scheduled seven innings, Lubreski would have notched the first Division I no-hitter in program history. Lubreski allowed just a base-on-balls and a hit-by-pitch through the first six innings and he kept the no-hitter through seven innings, despite yielding two walks (one intentional) in the seventh.
 
The no-hitter went by the wayside when the first two NYIT batters in the eighth inning singled, but Lubreski retired the next three Bears to escape the jam.
 
2B Frank Sanacore led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a single, but Lubreski got the next two outs, before Lebel, 6-foot-5 and 268 pounds, ended the game with the third home run of his freshman season.
 
Now in its 10th season of Division I baseball competition, NJIT has never pitched a no-hitter in Division I.  There have been three one-hitters, two within a week of each other. Tripp Davis allowed one hit in a seven-inning win over Chicago State on May 12, 2012 and Mark Leiter, Jr., pitched the program's only nine-inning DI one-hitter on May 17, 2012 in a 1-0 victory at NYIT.
 
Current Highlander Ian Bentley, then a sophomore, pitched the most recent one-hitter in a seven-inning win over Maryland Eastern Shore on May 10, 2014.
 
There has been one no-hitter pitched against NJIT at the Division I level and that was by Stony Brook freshman Frankie Vanderka on March 18, 2011 in a game hosted by Seton Hall in South Orange.
 
On Saturday, NJIT got a walk in the eighth inning and a single in the ninth, but as in the preceding seven innings, the Highlanders could not get Lubreski the run he needed to back his no-hit pitching.
 
Dixon Marble and Joseph Portela, two seniors, combined to shut out NJIT, scattering eight hits and a walk, plus a hit-by-pitch.
 
The win went to Portela (1-0), a right-hander who played his first three college baseball seasons at Briarcliffe, also on Long Island, which discontinued its small-college athletics program following the 2014-15 academic year.
 
Marble, also in his first season as a Bear after pitching in junior college the last two years, worked the first seven innings and allowed seven hits and Portela yielded one hit over the last two innings.
 
NJIT, which had seven singles and an Evan Pietronico double in the opener, left 10 men on base and batted 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. 1B Bryan Haberstroh (2-for-3, walk) was the only Highlander with more than one hit.
 
Pietronico doubled with one out in the opening inning, but never advanced, foreshadowing the difficulties still to come.
 
NJIT got hits in each of the first five innings and then two hits with one out in the sixth inning, but couldn't push anything across the plate.
 
In fact, the Highlanders got base runners in all nine innings, but it was to no avail and they paid the price when Lebel homered to right center field with two out in the ninth.
 
Saturday's see-saw second game included a run for each team in each of the first two innings before NYIT appeared to gain the upper hand with a two-run third inning to go up 4-2. The lead was short-lived, however, as NJIT scored four in the top of the fourth inning for a 6-4 advantage that would prove to be just as fleeting. The Bears knotted the score again with two in the bottom of the fourth and then scored what proved to be the game-winner in the bottom of the sixth inning with an unearned run.
 
Both pitchers of record were relievers. Alberto, the freshman RHP, allowed two hits and no runs for NYIT over the final 3.1 innings to get the win. Sophomore right-hander Tommy Derer (2-4), the second of four NJIT pitchers, took the loss after allowing three runs (two earned) in two innings.
 
NJIT  starter Johnny Malatesta was charged with four runs (three earned) in three innings and junior RHP Matt Diaz started for the Bears and allowed six runs (five earned) in 3.2 innings.
 
LHP Chris Gibbons and RHP John Saviano combined to pitch one inning in relief of Derer. Neither was charged with a hit or a run, but Saviano was on the mound when NYIT CF Joe Daru, who led off the frame with a single against Derer and then stole second and third and came home on a throwing error on his steal of third, scored the game-winner.
 
Everyone in the NYIT batting order had at least one hit in the Game Two win and DH Anthony Carradonna (2-for-4) hit a pair of doubles, while the Game One hero, Lebel, rapped out a pair of singles. 3B Louis Mele and Sanacore added on double each.
 
NJIT got its seven total hits from six different men, as DH Stephan Halibej (2-for-4) was the only Highlander with multiple hits. Pietronico (1-for-4) hit a bases-loaded double, his team-leading 13th two-bagger of the season, to drive in three runs and CF Jesse Uttendorfer (1-for-3) also hit a double, his 11th.
Trailing 4-2 after three innings, NJIT got four runs in the fourth, when Pietronico doubled to bring in three and then scored himself two batters later on a two-out single for Halibej.
 
The Bears responded in the next half-inning with two runs on a one-out single by 2B Matthew DeAngelis, the fourth batter to face NJIT's Derer, who entered the game at the beginning of the frame.
 
The same two teams are slated for another doubleheader on Sunday, with the location moving to Newark and Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium. Both games are scheduled for seven innings with first pitch of the day at noon.
 
NJIT and NYIT have been frequent baseball opponents since the Highlanders began Division I competition in the 2007 season. Saturday's games were the 35th and 36th games in the all-time series between the programs.
 
NYIT, based on Long Island, is unusual in that all of its varsity teams, except baseball, compete in NCAA Division II. The Bears have played Division I baseball since 1981.
 
NYIT, one of just a few baseball Independents in Division I, began the all-time series vs. the Highlanders with four games in 2007 (NJIT's first DI season) and the Highlanders and Bears were both members of the now-defunct Great West Conference during the Great West's existence from 2010 to 2013. And they have continued to play since the GWC folded.