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ST. MARY'S CITY, Md. -- Senior Curtis Pittman was 4-5 with a home run and a pair of doubles, headlining a dominant offensive effort for the CNU baseball team on the road Wednesday afternoon, as the Captains (18-12, 10-5) surged past St. Mary's College (Md.) (16-16, 7-7) in CAC action. Pittman accounted for three of the Captains' nine extra-base hits in the game, and drove in a career-high four runs to lead CNU to its ninth win in the last 12 games. 

Coming into Wednesday's game, the Captains were ranked fourth in the nation in doubles, and against the Seahawks, CNU drilled six more. Christopher Newport also leads the nation in home runs, and hit two more Wednesday afternoon. The potent offense saw five different players finish with multi-hit games against St. Mary's, and seven different Captains registered at least one hit as CNU outpaced their opponent, 16-8. 

Tommy Vitaletti got the game started with a double to left field for his 15th two-bagger of the year. He advanced to third on a single by Billy Steel and scored on a sacrifice fly by Travis Younger. The Seahawks would draw even in the bottom of the fourth, when Jared Eaker came in to score on a wild pitch.

With a handful of weather postponements adding games to the latter portion of the schedule, the Captains pitching staff was spread thin for the conference matchup. After playing seven games in six days last week, CNU will head into next week's CAC Tournament playing four more in four days. Due to that stress, head coach John Harvell split up his pitching staff on Wednesday, with no player registering more than three innings pitched. 

Senior Nick Santalucia got the start and finished out the first two innings without allowing a run. He struck out a pair and lowered his team-best ERA to 0.96 for the season. Senior Justin Weaver (1-0) came in for the next three innings, giving up two earned runs on a pair of hits. He earned the win as the Captains pulled ahead of the Seahawks in the top of the fifth inning. Rookie Michael Thomas tossed a perfect sixth, followed by three innings between juniors Kyle Goddard and Justin Garber to close out the win. 

The Captains three-run fifth inning was kicked off by a one-out solo home run from Vitaletti, his third dinger of the season. Steel then reached on an infield single and scored on a double by Jacob Houston. Younger then stepped in and hammered a shot off the wall in center field, scoring Houston and winding up on third base with a triple. The inning nearly continued with two outs, but rookie A.J. Nicely was retired on a line shot at the third baseman. 

After St. Mary's pulled within one in the bottom half of the inning, the Captains tacked on two more in the top of the sixth to pull away for good. Pittman opened the inning with a solo home run, his career-high third of the year. After two outs were recorded, Steel kept the inning alive with a double to left field, and then scored on a throwing error by the shortstop. Pittman added an RBI double in the seventh and a two-RBI double in the eighth, giving him run-scoring knocks in three straight innings. 

The senior first baseman finished with four of CNU's 16 hits, going 4-5 with four RBI and one run scored. Steel added a 3-6 performance with two runs scored, while Younger, Houston and Vitaletti each added two-hit days. 

Brad Dioguardo was 2-4 with two RBI for the Seahawks, and Colin Thatcher came off the bench to add two hits for St. Mary's as well. Sam Coe (3-3) suffered the loss for the home team, after giving up five earned runs in five innings of work. 

The Captains will return to action on Thursday, April 10, as they travel to Randolph-Macon College for a non-conference matchup with the Yellow Jackets. First pitch is scheduled for 3:00 pm.