On Sunday, May 4, the Monroe Mustangs men's baseball team won their first-ever NJCAA Region XV Division I baseball championship.    Monroe defeated Globe, 3-2 Sunday afternoon, in a tense, four-hour, 12-inning thriller winning the Region Championship series 2-1 and clinching the title.

“I’m real proud of this team”, said head coach Luis Melendez after the win.  “For our young baseball program, this is a step in the right direction and a great achievement.  But we have more work to be done and that starts in Maryland.”

This weekend Monroe will represent Region XV as the #3 seed in the Regional Tournament taking place at Anne Arundel CC, Arnold, Md.   On Friday, May 9 at 10:00am the Mustangs will play #2 Hagerstown in the first game of the double-elimination tournament.  The semifinal games are Saturday, May 10, with the finals slated for Sunday, May 11.

Monroe won the Region Championship by splitting the first two games against Globe on Saturday, losing the first 11-8 and winning the second 4-0.  In Sunday’s winner-take-all final, Monroe jumped out with two second inning runs, but Globe tied the game with one run in the sixth and one in the eighth.

In the bottom of the twelfth inning, after two walks, Monroe freshman Robin Bugallo got the most important of his five hits of the day with a clean single to right-center, driving home Normand Gosslein who pounced on the plate with the winning run.  Gosslein pitched an inning and-a-third in relief to get the win.

The Mustangs are now 23-11 on the season.