BEVERLY, Mass. - Alex Henderson hit two home runs, giving him 11 homers in seven NCAA Tournament games, but the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team came up just short against No. 3 Endicott, falling 8-6 to end their season in the Super Regionals on Saturday. 

The loss ends a campaign that saw the Stags set a new program record for win in a season with 35 (35-15), breaking the previous mark of 32 set last year, while advancing to the Super Regional round for the first time. Endicott improves to 43-4 and moves on to next weekend's nationals in Eastlake, Ohio. CMS outhit Endicott 14-6 for the day, but the hosts had a grand slam, a three-run homer and a solo shot among their hits to make them count.  

After falling 15-1 in the first game of the Super Regionals yesterday, the Stags needed to win twice on Saturday in order to advance, and they got their feet back underneath them early with two runs in the first. Dillon Martin led off with a single, and was driven home by an RBI double from Bryce Didrickson with two outs. Rider Gordon then singled Didrickson home to put the Stags ahead 2-0.

Endicott had a three-run homer in the top of the fourth to move ahead, before CMS, playing as the home team for the second game of supers, answered back in the bottom half with the first of the two homers from Henderson, a solo shot to knot the game back up at 3-3. 

The score stayed there until the seventh, when Endicott loaded the bases on an infield single and two hit by pitches, and then with two outs, Cade Bernardo hit the grand slam that proved to be the decisive blow. 

Endicott tacked on another run in the eighth with a solo shot, but CMS continued to fight, as Henderson hit a two-run shot with two-outs in the eighth to close the gap to 8-5. A Carter Bennett single in the ninth loaded the bases with nobody out, and Keegan Cabrera brought home one run with a sacrifice fly, but Endicott was able to get the final two outs with the winning run at the plate. 

Henderson finished 3-for-5 with two homers and three RBI, capping a ridiculous postseason which saw him hit 19-for-37 with 11 homers and 23 runs batted in. He had eight homers in the regular season, but passed that total with 11 in the NCAA Tournament, finishing the year with 19 homers and 69 RBI, setting a new single-season RBI record at CMS and falling one short of the home run record set by Andrew Mazzone last year. 

Mazzone added 18 more this season, including one in the first game of the Super Regionals on Friday, to graduate with the program's all-time career record of 38 in only two seasons. He finished the season with a .496 batting average, which matches the highest single-season average in program history with Larry Schmadeka in 1987.

Gordon was 4-for-4 at the plate for the Stags, while Didrickson and Bennett each added two hits. PJ Wendler struck out two in the ninth to give CMS a chance in the final inning

Mazzone is one of several key Stags to graduate, along with starting pitchers Matthew Bergan and Wendler, all-region reliever Hamilton Finefrock, team captain Jack Potter, relievers Lucas Welch and Henry Connell, and infielder Derek Seneker. But Henderson leads an impressive nucleus that returns next year, as CMS will try to advance one round further.