Orleans needed a win to wrap up the east division title. The Falmouth Commodores needed a win to keep pace in the ultra-tight west division race.

It was the Cardinals who got what they needed.

Riding a masterful pitching performance by right-hander Matt Thomson (San Diego), the squad from Orleans celebrated the division title with a 5-0 win at the Arnie Allen Diamond at Guv Fuller Field. The Cards scored all five of their runs in the final two innings of the ballgame as Thomson and the Commodores’ Jorge Reyes (Oregon State) matched zeroes for seven innings in a wonderfully pitched game.

Highlighting his fastball all night, Thomson kept the Commodores off-balance over the course of the ballgame as he sent them to their second straight loss, and third in the last four games. The lanky righty allowed just four hits, walked one and hit a batter as he was on cruise control after getting out of a slight first-inning jam. He fanned seven along the way through eight strong innings of work.

Reyes matched him pitch-for-pitch through seven, but gave up a homer in the seventh and then tired in the eighth. His final line did not do justice to his outing as he was tagged for five runs over 7.1 innings of work. Reyes was touched for seven hits, but five of them came over his final 1.1 innings of work, as did all of the runs. He struck out six and walked two.

The Cardinals’ Angelo Songco (Loyola-Marymount) smashed a long homer down the right field line with two outs in the top of the seventh to break up the shutout for Reyes. The Falmouth pitcher got ahead of Songco with a nasty change-up, but then went back to the well and the Cards’ leading longball hitter was waiting for it, driving the waist-high offering deep into the night.

“I left it up and he was waiting for it,” Reyes said.

Down just 1-0, the Commodores were still very much in the game, but then the eighth inning just unraveled on Reyes and the Commodores. The starting pitcher struck out the first man he faced, Hampton Tignor (Florida), but then a single to center by Mike Murphy (Maryland) was the beginning of a four-run rally for the visitors.

“I got the first guy, but then the second guy kind of blooped one in,” Reyes said. “Then it was one after another. It happened quick.”

Gary Brown (Cal-Fullerton) put two men in scoring position with a sharp double to left-center and then Matt Bowman (Nevada-Reno) chased both runners in with a double on an 0-2 pitch to make it a 3-0 game. A walk put two men aboard and ended Reyes’ night.

Preston Claiborne (Tulane) was summoned from the pen and struck out the first man he faced. The next batter, though, Michael Olt (Connecticut) collected the Cards’ third double of the inning, knocking in two more to make it 5-0.
The Commodores loaded the bases in the ninth with one down, but Orleans reliever Adam Wilk (Long Beach) struck out the last two men.

Falmouth dropped a 3-1 game at Cotuit on Sunday. They won on Saturday night, 3-2, on a 12th inning walk-off homer by Mike Thomas (Southern).