East Providence, R.I. – The No. 3 seeded Johnson & Wales University baseball team defeated No. 6 seed Norwich, 11-1 in the opening round of the 2010 Great Northeast Athletic Conference Baseball Championship at Pierce Field on Tuesday afternoon.

Johnson & Wales jumped out to the early lead when they tallied four unearned runs in the bottom of the first to take the 4-0 advantage. The Wildcats broke the game open in the bottom of the second when they notched five more runs, including a two-run double by senior Rich Fonseca (East Providence, R.I.), making the score 9-0

Norwich got on the board in the top of the fifth when an RBI single by sophomore David Maxfield (Randolph, Vt.) made the score 10-1. JWU capped off the scoring for the evening in the bottom of the sixth when sophomore Zach Boyes (West Warwick, R.I.) led off with a single and scored on a sacrifice fly by Fonseca. After JWU recorded three outs in the top of the seventh, the game was stopped due to the ten-run rule.

Boyes was 4-for-4 with three runs and three RBI for Johnson & Wales while junior Nick Alosco (Mahopac, N.Y.) went 1-for-3 with three runs and an RBI in the victory for the Wildcats. Junior Matt Yaeger (Glendale, Ariz.) went 3-for-4 with a run for JWU. Maxfield was 2-for-2 with an RBI in the loss for Norwich.

Senior Jeff Jordan (Woodbridge, N.J.) recorded the complete-game victory for Johnson & Wales, allowing one run on four hits with 10 strikeouts. Freshman Conar Mahon (Hopkinton, Mass.) suffered the loss for Norwich, giving up nine runs on 10 hits in two innings of work.

With the win JWU is now 14-26 while Norwich falls to 8-28 for the year. The Wildcats will return to action on Thursday, April 29th when they travel to No. 2 seed St. Joseph's of Maine for the Final Four of the GNAC Championship at 4:00 p.m. The remainder of the tournament is double-elimination with action resuming at Pierce Field in East Providence, R.I., on Saturday, May 1st and Sunday, May 2nd. Action gets underway on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.