PHOENIX, AZ- After nearly two years away from collegiate pitching, Wheaton College senior hurler Louie Bernardini (Gray, ME/Gray-New Gloucester) was two outs away from recording the program's second no-hitter, leading the nationally-ranked Lyons to a 6-0 triumph over The College of New Jersey on Tuesday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Wheaton knocked off Rockford College, 12-7.

Off to one of their best starts in program history, the Lyons improved to 4-1 during their 10-game Arizona slate. Sweeping the Lions, Wheaton entered the game ranked 23rd in today's D3baseball.com national poll, while TCNJ and Rockford each fell to 2-4.

Bernardini's stellar outing included eight strikeouts and one walk in 8.1 innings, surrendering a lone base hit to third with one down in the ninth. After leaving two Lion players stranded in the first, Bernardini found his groove and set down 11 straight batters entering the fifth.

After plunking consecutive batters to open the fifth, Bernardini helped his cause by getting the force at third on a sacrifice bunt attempt before fanning the next batter and inducing a fly ball to right to escape the inning unscathed. Outside of hitting a batter in each the seventh and eighth frames, the righty retired nine Lions over three innings.

In the ninth, Bernardini forced his first batter to ground out to short, as senior Nick Pecora (Highland Park, NJ/Immaculata) made a nice play to preserve the no-hit bid. Pecora also contributed offensively by going 2-for-5 with three RBI and a first-inning, two-run homer that gave the Lyons the lead for good.

Freshman Dan Haugh (Andover, MA/Saint John's Prep was 3-for-5, junior Jason Clucas (Peabody, MA/Saint John's Prep) and sophomore Hadi Raad (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY/Hastings) each went 2-for-3, while sophomore Eric Laliberte (Nashua, NH/Bishop Guertin) batted 2-for-4 with two RBI.

Against Rockford, Wheaton trailed 4-2 through three innings before the Lyons plated seven runs in the fourth to blow the game open. The Blue and White tacked on two runs in the sixth to expand its lead to 11-4. The Regents added a pair of runs in the seventh, and each team added one in the eighth to complete the scoring. Each squad finished with 11 hits, while Rockford added six defensive miscues.

Laliberte turned in an outstanding effort from his leadoff position, going 3-for-3 with three runs, two RBI, a pair of doubles, two walks and a hit by pitch. Junior Paul Malaguti (Andover, MA/Andover) batted 2-for-3 with an RBI, a run and one of five Wheaton doubles, while classmate Jeff Lieneck (Foxboro, MA/Xaverian Brothers) went 2-for-5 with three RBI, two runs, a double and a base on balls.

Sophomore hurler Pat Martin (Rockland, MA/Rockland), who also hasn't pitched collegiately in almost two years, earned the win after yielding four earned runs on eight hits with two strikeouts and a pair of walks in five innings of work.

After tomorrow's off day, Wheaton returns to action on Thursday afternoon to face Division II Saint Cloud State University at 12:00 p.m. The Huskies are among a number of teams receiving votes in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper national poll.