Box Score CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Second-seeded Babson College scored four runs in the first inning and turned a key double play in the top of the seventh on the way to defeating fifth-seeded Wheaton College, 4-3, in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament elimination game on Saturday afternoon at Briggs Field. 

Babson, which has won five of its last six games, improves to 26-14 and returns to the conference tournament final for the second year in a row. Wheaton, which had already won two elimination games in the tournament, sees its year come to a close at 28-15. 

Junior Ruby Madia (Princeton Junction, N.J.) went 2-for-3 and senior Athena Hadjipanayis (Rye, N.Y.), sophomore Charlotte Raymond (Wrentham, Mass.) and first-years Belle DiCampello (Pottstown, Pa.) and Maddy DeLong (Cranford, N.J.) each knocked in a run for the Beavers. Graduate student Cameron Whiteford (Centerville, Md.) allowed three runs on four hits over 4.0 innings to improve to 13-7 with the win, while classmate Moira O'Reilly (Columbus, Ohio) struck out seven over three shutout innings of relief to pick up her second save. 

Senior Juliette Zito (Woodbridge, Conn.) doubled twice and scored a pair of runs, sophomore Ella Molinari (Grafton, Mass.) was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored, and senior Jillian Rohon (Southington, Conn.) added two base hits for the Lyons. Junior Peyton Blankenheim-Brown (Rio Linda, Calif.) doubled and had two RBI at the plate and went the distance in the circle, allowing three earned runs on six hits while dropping to 10-5 on the year with the loss. 

Zito led off the game with a double down the left field line and scored on Molinari's RBI single two batters later to give Wheaton a 1-0 lead. The Green and White answered by sending all nine batters to the plate and scoring four times in the bottom of the first. 

Senior Sara Moore (Kennett Square, Pa.) reached on a bunt single, stole second and came home to tie the game when Hadjipanayis ripped a single to left. The Beavers took advantage of an error and a walk to load the bases and Raymond brough home Hadjipanayis with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-1. DiCampello followed with an RBI single to center and DeLong capped the rally with another sacrifice fly that brought home junior Sophia Pak (New Rochelle, N.Y.) for a 4-1 cushion. 

Whiteford breezed through the second but Zito reached on an error and Molinari walked with two outs leading to Blankenheim-Brown's two-run double to right center that cut the Wheaton deficit to 4-3. O'Reilly struck out the side in the fifth and sixth innings before Rohon led off the top of the seventh with a single to right. Zito followed with a double to the wall in right center but took too big of a turn around second and was tagged out going to third by Hadjipanayis, who then fired home to cut down Rohon trying to score to complete the double play. 

O'Reilly then ended the game by mowing down senior Grace Dibacco (Selkirk, N.Y.) for the second time on the day. 

Babson will meet top-seeded MIT in Saturday's final at 12 p.m. needing to beat the Engineers twice to claim its first conference title since 2021.

GAME NOTES
•    The Beavers are 29-50 all-time against Wheaton, which includes a 7-7 mark in the conference playoffs. 
•    Five consecutive games and six of the last eight contests between Babson and the Lyons have been decided by a single run. 
•    Moore and Pak extended their hitting streaks to 15 and 14 games, respectively, and became the first Babson teammates in program history to both reach 60 hits in a season on Saturday. 
•    The Beavers are now 23-2 this spring when scoring at least three runs.