BOX SCORE

Staten Island, NY – Junior Vin Avella (Matawan, NJ / CBA) clouted his school-record 13th home run of the year, breaking Wagner Hall of Famer and former Chicago Cubs' farmhand Joe Murphy's previous record of 12 set in 1984 in the Green & White's 9-8 loss to Iona. Avella went 2-4 with two runs and two RBI and now has 30 home runs for his career, just two off of Chris Dick's total of 32.

The Gaels improve to 4-33-1 with the win while the Seahawks fall to 20-16. Wagner returns to action this weekend with a four-game set at LIU. The series which begins on Friday at 3:00 pm will have major playoff implications for the Green & White.

Wagner sprinted out to a 6-0 lead in the opening frame, using five hits and two Iona errors. Sophomore Jared Gruccio (Landisville, NJ / Buena Regional) plated junior Damian Csakai (Freehold, NJ / Freehold) for the game's first run with a single up the middle. After Avella reached on an error, sophomore Seth Boyd (Perth Amboy) drove the pair home with a triple through the right side. Classmate Matt Logan (Wall, NJ / Wall) made it 4-0 with a line-drive single off the right-field fence, plating Boyd. Junior Joe Conforti (Staten Island, NY / Farrell) followed with a single before sophomore Jon Lucas (Hackettstown, NJ / Hackettstown) singled home Logan. Classmate MJ Dugan (Mountainside, NJ / Governor Livingston) capped the scoring with a sacrifice fly, plating Conforti.

From that point the Seahawks bats would be silenced while the Gaels plated two runs in the third and three in the fifth, cutting the deficit to 6-5. Iona then plated three unearned runs in the top of the seventh to take their first lead of the game at 8-6.

Avella immediately responded in the bottom of the seventh with his school-record 13th blast of the year off of reliever William Dorsa, slicing the deficit to 8-7.

The Gaels added an insurance run in the top of the ninth, extending the lead out to 9-7.

Csakai and Gruccio led off the bottom of the ninth with the Seahawks' first two walks of the game. After advancing to second-and-third Avella plated Csakai with a sacrifice fly, cutting the lead to one. Gruccio advanced to third on a groundout but was left stranded, giving Iona a come-from-behind 9-8 win.

The Green & White rapped out 11 hits as Gruccio, Logan and Lucas matched Avella with two hits.

Iona starter RHP John Kassebaum yielded six runs, three earned, on 10 hits over 6.0 innings while improving to 1-0. Sophomore Ian Karlsson (Brooklyn, NY / Xavierian) struck out two and gave up three unearned runs while falling to 2-2. Wagner starter RHP Ryan Van Spronsen (Brantford, Ontario / Assumption College) was solid, striking out four over 3.0 innings.

Nick Rossetti was 2-4 with three runs to pace Iona while Eric Capowski and Andrew Passerelle each notched two hits.