NORWICH — The Mystic Schooners baseball won its July opener, 8-3, against Bristol to win its second game in a row on Friday afternoon at Dodd Stadium. 

The Blues got out to an early 1-0 lead in the top of the second when AJ Gaich beat the throw home when attempting to steal home plate from third base. 

Bristol then tacked on two more runs in the fourth inning on RBI singles from Matt Smith and Griffin Arone. 

Eddie Micheletti (George Washington University) and Addison Kopak (University of Rhode Island) began the bottom half of the inning with back-to-back walks. Micheletti would then score on a pass ball to put Mystic on the board at 3-1. 

Then the tides would begin to turn as back-to-back errors from the Blues on hits from Joseph Jaconski (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill) and Charlie Pagliarini (Fairfield University) allowed Mystic to tie the game at 3-3 with Kopak and Jaconski coming across to score. 

Bo Baker (Fairfield University) continued his strong start to the season, throwing 2.2 scoreless innings of relief while allowing no hits and striking out three. Baker now holds a 0.00 ERA through 15.1 innings across seven games this summer. 

Mystic broke open the game up 8-3 with a five-run seventh inning that featured three hits and the Schooners sending 10 batters to the plate. 

Jaconski provided the Schooners with their first two runs in the inning on a single up the middle scoring Jackson DeJohn (St. Bonaventure University) and Anthony Donofrio (Quinnipiac University). Pagliarini and Tristian McAlister (Mt. St. Mary’s University) then followed with back-to-back RBI singles plating across the final three runs of the inning.

Yale pitchers Reid Easterly and Jimmy Chatfield came in relief of Baker and threw three combined scoreless innings out of the bullpen. 

Pagliarini extended his hit streak to three games with two singles in the second and seventh. The Trumbull, Connecticut native also finished with two RBIs and a walk on the afternoon. 

Jaconski recorded his first multi-RBI game of the season with his two-RBI single in the seventh. 

Mystic moved to 9-9 on the season and will now look to extend its winning streak to three games tomorrow. 

UP NEXT: Mystic (9-9) will travel to North Adams tomorrow, July 2, at 6:30 pm EST at Joe Wolfe Field. The game will be streamed on the NECBL Broadcast Network, with live stats and streaming information available on schoonersbaseball.com. 

Keep up with the Mystic Schooners baseball team through social media by following on Twitter (@mysticschooners), Instagram (@mysticbaseball, TikTok (@schoonersbaseball), and  `liking' on Facebook (/MysticBaseball).