NORTH DARTMOUTH, MA- The nationally-ranked Wheaton College baseball team extended its winning streak to 12 games with runs in five of the first seven innings on Thursday afternoon, as the Lyons pushed past the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, 9-2 at the UMass-Dartmouth Athletic Complex.

Wheaton, which is ranked sixth in the D3baseball.com national poll, is now 13-1 while riding the third-longest winning streak in program history, as the top three have each occurred during the past four seasons. The Corsairs fell to 1-12.

The Lyons manufactured its first four runs before using the long ball to break the game open. A passed ball and freshman Dan Haugh's (Andover, MA/Saint John's Prep) sacrifice fly gave the Lyons a 2-0 edge in the opening frame before two more runs came around on a wild pitch and sophomore Eric Laliberte's (Nashua, NH/Bishop Guertin) groundout in the second.

With one down in the fifth, Haugh launched his fifth home run of the year, a two-run shot that also brought around senior Nick Pecora (Highland Park, NJ/Immaculata), who had singled. Two batters later, junior Paul Malaguti (Andover, MA/Andover) slugged his third dinger of the season. It was Wheaton's 14th homer after the Lyons had 17 in 44 games in 2008.

Laliberte and Malaguti added RBI singles in the sixth and seventh innings, respectively, to cap the Blue and White's offensive output before the Corsairs plated single runs in each the seventh and eighth on fielder's choices.

Pecora went 3-for-5 with two runs and a double, single-handedly equaling UMass-Dartmouth's hit total. Malaguti was 2-for-4 with two RBI, Laliberte added two RBI, and Haugh drove in three runs and scored two more. Sophomore Sean Munley (Trenton, NJ/The Hun School of Princeton) walked twice.

A trio of pitchers combined on the three-hitter, as sophomore southpaw Kevin Calabro (Andover, MA/Andover) tossed seven innings of two-hit ball, yielding one earned run while striking out five and walking four in improving to 2-0. Junior Jon Shepard (Salisbury, MA/Triton Regional) allowed one unearned run during 1.1 frames of hitless action, and sophomore Pat Martin (Rockland, MA/Rockland) retired two of the three batters he faced.

As one of three Corsair hurlers, sophomore Chris Contre (East Bridgewater, MA/East Bridgewater) took the loss, surrendering seven runs on six hits in five innings. He walked five and struck out two, as the Lyons totaled 10 hits and seven walks against UMass-Dartmouth.

Wheaton continues a stretch of five games in four days with a 3:30 p.m. contest at Endicott College tomorrow afternoon.