HAVERHILL, Mass. - The Saint Michael's College baseball team suffered its fourth loss to a regionally-ranked team this season on Thursday evening, dropping a 5-2 affair against Merrimack College at Trinity Stadium during Northeast-10 Conference Northeast Division play. The Purple Knights are now 4-9 overall and 0-2 in the NE-10, as three of their setbacks to regionally-ranked foes have been by three runs or less. The Warriors are 9-5 and 3-0 while standing fourth in the latest New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) poll.

Senior Michael Dougherty (Albany, N.Y./Christian Brothers Academy/Schenectady County CC) was 2-for-4 with a run and his school-record-tying fifth triple of the season for Saint Michael's, while junior Alex Holt (Framingham, Mass./Marian) finished 2-for-4 with an RBI. Sophomore Peter Cross (Fairfield, Conn./Fairfield Ludlowe) yielded five earned runs with three strikeouts and one walk over five innings to take the loss before junior Curt Echo (Shelburne, Vt./Champlain Valley Union) tossed a pair of shutout innings in relief. Senior Will Corkum (Ipswich, Mass./Ipswich) worked a no-hit eighth.

First-year Matt Nicholson (Rockland, Mass./Rockland) was 3-for-3 with two runs and a home run off the bench for Merrimack, and junior Frank Crinella (East Longmeadow, Mass./Cathedral) finished 2-for-4 with a double. First-year PJ Browne (Rutland, Mass./Saint John's) yielded two earned runs on seven hits while striking out seven and walking one in six innings to nab the win, and sophomore Nate Spielvogel (Brookline, Mass./Brookline) worked a perfect ninth for the save.

Purple Knight senior Nicky Elderton (Shelburne, Vt./Rice Memorial) led off the second inning with a single before being sacrificed to second by junior Matt Feeney (Portsmouth, N.H./Portsmouth), but Browne struck out the final two batters. Merrimack responded with the first two runs in the home half, as redshirt first-year Paul Buckley's (Sagamore Beach, Mass./Lawrence Academy) RBI single was followed by first-year Ricky Smith's (Weymouth, Mass./Xaverian Brothers) run-scoring fielder's choice. Crinella scored on a two-out error the following frame before Nicholson hit his solo blast, and the Warriors led 4-0.

Holt's two-out RBI single in the fourth plated senior George Buteau (Burlington, Vt./Trinity-Pawling School), who led off by being hit by a pitch, and Saint Michael's had runners on the corners before Browne picked up a strikeout. Crinella got the run right back in the bottom half with a two-out RBI knock of his own.

The Purple Knights chipped within three runs again in the fifth, as Dougherty tripled before senior Don McGuirl (Warwick, R.I./Saint Sebastian's School) lofted a sac fly. Cross worked around a two-on, none-out jam in the home half, inducing two ground balls and a fly ball. Still down three runs in the sixth, Saint Michael's had first-year Peter Bocchino (Saugus, Mass./The Governor's Academy) and Holt both single with one down to bring the tying run to the plate, but a pickoff and groundout ended the threat, as the final 10 Purple Knights were retired.

Echo stranded a Warrior at third base with two down in the seventh before Corkum left a runner at second with two out in the eighth, as the bullpen preserved the three-run deficit in the late innings.

The Purple Knights head to nationally-ranked Franklin Pierce University this weekend for a three-game series, beginning with a single game on Saturday at 1 p.m. and a Sunday doubleheader at 12 p.m. The Ravens are third in the D2baseballnews.com national poll while pacing both the NEIBA and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) regional rankings.