The Dominican University baseball team dropped a 4-3 decision to the Benedictine University Eagles in the first round of the 2017 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) Tournament on Thursday afternoon at Kapco Park in Mequon, Wisconsin.  The loss drops the Stars into the elimination bracket, facing their first elimination game on Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. against the MSOE Raiders.
 
Tyler Brown took the loss on the mound, giving up four runs in a complete-game effort.  The junior right-hander surrendered seven hits and two walks while punching out four.  After the Eagles touched Brown for three runs in the bottom of the fifth, Brown retired the next eight hitters before giving up a two-out double in the bottom of the eighth.
 
After the Eagles took a 4-1 lead, Dominican pulled within a run when Matt Segovia singled to left with two outs to score Nathaniel Natividad and Colin Janison who reached on a throwing error earlier in the inning.  Segovia was then stranded at second before the Stars went down in order in the top of the eighth and ninth innings.
 
Dominican out hit Benedictine 8-7 but stranded nine runners in the loss, including leaving the bases loaded in the top of the first.
 
"Today was a game that could have gone either way," said Stars' head coach Steve Hardman. "We did not take advantage of some scoring opportunities early that came back to haunt us. Tyler, yet again, had a great outing but came up short in the win column. In the end we just ran out of outs. In a tournament setting you do not have much time to dwell on a loss, so our focus is now on MSOE tomorrow morning." 
 
The Stars are now 19-22 on the season while Benedictine improved to 24-16.