BUTLER, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team suffered its first defeat of the 2015 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament in a 13-4 loss to East Stroudsburg University Thursday afternoon at Kelly Automotive Field.
Slippery Rock tallied 15 hits in the game, but left 10 runners on base while the Warriors turned 18 hits into 13 runs, the fourth-highest run total allowed by The Rock this season.
The loss drops Slippery Rock's record to 30-17 on the season and forces SRU into an elimination game against Mercyhurst University Friday at 9:30 a.m. The winner of the game will continue to compete for a league title against either Millersville or Seton Hill at 3:30 p.m. Thursday while the loser will wait to see if it is selected to play in the NCAA Division II Tournament. Mercyhurst was ranked first and The Rock seventh in the latest regional rankings; the top six teams in the final regional rankings qualify for the national tournament.
Five Rock players registered multi-hit outings with
Alex Bell leading the way on a 3-for-5 day that included a pair of doubles and one RBI.
Adam Urbania extended his hitting streak to 34 games after a 2-for-5 effort. He now owns the 11th longest hitting streak in NCAA Division II history.
Jake Nogalo,
Tyler Walters and
Ty Zimmerman all had two-hit games, while
Preston Falascino hit his ninth home run of season and drove in two runs.
Kyle Schneider (5-4) got the start for Slippery Rock. He lasted five innings, allowing seven runs on 10 hits.
Alex Pantuso threw four innings in relief, finishing the day with two strikeouts while giving up six runs and eight hits.
Slippery Rock had its chances to score early, but it stranded two runners on base in both the first and third innings.
East Stroudsburg took advantage of its first scoring opportunity of the game when Matt Walewski hit a double down the left field line to score Ian Allen, who singled earlier in the inning, from first base and give ESU the early one-run lead. The Warriors further extended their advantage to 5-0 with four runs in the fourth inning.
Undeterred by the early deficit, Slippery Rock would break through in the fourth with a three-run inning. Following a leadoff double by Bell, Falascino launched a two-run homer. One out later,
Jordan Faretta connected on a double that led to a Zimmerman run-scoring single to cut the Warriors' lead down to 5-3 going into the fifth inning.
However, just as it seemed Slippery Rock was getting back into the game East Stroudsburg pushed its lead back out to four runs when Dylan Tamecki hit a two-run home run in the fifth over the right field wall.
Slippery Rock got one run back in the fifth inning off of back-to-back doubles by Bell and Urbania while Pantuso came on relief to throw two scoreless innings before East Stroudsburg posted six insurances runs over the final two innings on the way to a 13-4 victory.
Tamecki and Allen combined to go 8-for-10 with six RBI for East Stroudsburg. Tyler Eckman recorded the complete-game victory by scattering 15 hits and four runs over nine innings.
