Golden Eagles shutout in NCAA Regional opener

By: Victor Menendez

The Brockport Golden Eagles baseball team standing in a line during the National Anthem on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Brockport Athletics)

ASHLAND, V.A. -- Brockport Golden Eagles baseball was shutout 10-0 by the Methodist Monarchs in the first game of the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday. Monarchs starting pitcher Kyle Molivas threw a complete game shutout, powering the four-seed Methodist to a win over the one-seed Golden Eagles.

"At this point, if you don't play well, you're going to lose," Golden Eagles head coach Justin Beach said. "We're going to try to go one pitch at a time, and hopefully keep it rolling. Hopefully tomorrow they show up, and I know they will."

Molivas, who was named the USA South pitcher of the year, came into the game with an 8-2 record and a 3.46 ERA. The right-hander gave up just three hits and three walks in his nine scoreless innings of work, striking out four.

"When I woke up this morning, I was just so excited, I've been so excited all week," Molivas said. "I told Parker [Evans] (teammate) earlier this week, 'Friday can't come soon enough.' I was just ready to get out here and throw."

The Monarchs jumped out to an early 4-0 lead against Brockport starting pitcher Anthony Lapine in the first inning. Lapine, coming off a complete game shutout himself in the Empire 8 semifinal game, went just 3.2 innings, giving up seven runs, all earned, on seven hits. The senior didn't walk a batter on the game, and struck out five Monarch hitters, but some timely hitting and unfortunate bounces burned Lapine in this one.

Anthony Lapine throwing a pitch on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Brockport Athletics)

"It comes down to timely hitting, and they had some really good timely hitting," Beach said. "They're well coached, they're fundamental, their two-strike approach was great. Anthony [Lapine] did a good job, still getting some punchouts. They just did a nice job with two outs getting some RBIs there."

USA South player of the year Tristen Melvin took Lapine deep out to right field in the third inning to extend the Methodist lead to 5-0. Melvin, who was also the USA South tournament MVP, showed off his opposite field power for his 10th home run of the year.

Brockport used just three pitchers on the day as Thomas DiGirolomo and Brendan Pajak each gave the Golden Eagles eight outs of work in relief of Lapine. Needing to win four consecutive games now to win this regional round, Brockport will need all of the pitching it can get.

"In this tournament, if you're going to win it, you're going to need to pitch a little bit," Beach said. "Our bullpen did a nice job, just kind of holding the rope a little bit so we didn't have to burn too many guys."

With this tournament being double-elimination, the Golden Eagles season is not over, but they do have quite the hill to climb. They'll face off against the two-seed in this tournament in Randolph-Macon tomorrow, May 17, at 8:30 a.m.

Randolph-Macon fell to three-seed Messiah by a score of 15-0 after Brockport's game, so both teams will be fighting for their tournament life tomorrow.

The winner of the game between Brockport and Randolph-Macon will have to beat the loser of the game between Messiah and Methodist tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. in order to advance to the championship round.