NORTON, Mass.—Senior Zach DeMattio (North Attleborough, Mass.) homered as part of a two-hit day and drove in all three runs to help top-seeded Wheaton College defeat third-seeded Babson College, 3-1, in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament winner's bracket game on Saturday afternoon at Sidell Stadium.

With the loss, Babson falls to 24-14 on the year and now must win three straight games to claim its first conference tournament championship since 2018. Wheaton improves to 29-10 with its 16th consecutive triumph and is now one victory away from claiming its second consecutive title.

Senior Jack Pirkl (Brightwaters, N.Y.) had an RBI single and classmate Sean Burychka (Mount Laurel, N.J.) doubled and scored for the Beavers, who were limited to just five hits. Junior Tim Noone (Needham, Mass.) recorded his first career complete game giving up three runs and scattering eight hits while striking out three to slip to 6-2 on the year.

Seniors Jake Studley (Barrington, R.I.) and Drew Spirito (Cranston, R.I.) both singled twice for the Lyons, who got 7.1 innings of one-run ball from classmate Gavin Reily (Bridgewater, Mass.). Reily fanned three and gave up just one run on five hits to improve to 6-2, while fellow senior Dom Cunha () worked around a one-out walk in the ninth with a pair of strikeouts to record his 10th save of the year.

Noone worked out of a second and third, one-out jam in the first and worked around a leadoff walk in the second before Wheaton took a 1-0 lead on DeMattio's RBI single with two outs in the third. He retired the next seven batters he faced before Studley led off the sixth with an infield single and DeMattio followed with a two-run blast to left to extend the Lyons' lead to 3-0.

Reily got a fly ball to right to strand a pair of Babson runners on base in the second and retired 12 straight batters before Burychka doubled down the left field line with one out in the eighth. Pirkl drove him in with an RBI base hit that chased Reily and cut the margin to two, but junior Max Pierce (Scituate, R.I.) retired the only two hitters he faced to get out of the inning and Cunha started and ended the top of the ninth with strikeouts.

Babson will face MIT at 11 a.m. on Sunday at Sidell Stadium with the winner set to face Wheaton at 2 p.m.

GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are now 32-52 in the all-time series and 11-13 against Wheaton in the NEWMAC Tournament.
• Prior to Saturday's, Noone had won six consecutive decisions going back to his season debut at Trinity (Texas) on February 26.
• Pirkl extend his hitting streak to six games in Saturday's loss.
• Babson has lost all eight games this season when scoring runs or fewer.
• The Beavers are now 5-7 on the year in games decided by one or two runs.