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JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -- Slippery Rock University remained alive in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Baseball Championships with an 18-9 win over Mansfield in an elimination game Thursday morning at Point Stadium.

Sophomore right fielder Matt Kosik and sophomore left fielder Carter Haponski each had three hits to pace a 17-hit Rock offensive attack that propelled SRU (26-22) into a 9:30 a.m. game Friday against West Chester.

Friday's game will be a rematch of last Wednesday's opening-round game between The Rock and Golden Knights, which West Chester won by a 7-6 score.

In Thursday's game, Kosik smacked a pair of home runs, a solo shot in the second inning and a three-run bomb in the sixth,  to improve his team-leading total to eight and added an RBI single in the fifth to finish the game with five RBIs.

Haponski slapped his first roundtripper of the season, a three-run inside-the-park shot, in the eighth inning and had an RBI single in the fifth to finish the game with four RBIs.

Senior second baseman Billy Messer also had three hits in the game and collected two RBIs, while junior center fielder #Matt Howard and junior catcher Mitchell Monas# each had two hits and picked up two RBIs.  

Howard had a two-run triple in the fifth inning, while Monas smacked a two-run home run in the top of the first inning to give The Rock a quick 2-0 lead.

Junior righthander George Hebert (7-1) was the beneficiary of the offensive outburst, which allowed him to escape unscathed despite allowing nine earned runs on 11 hits in the process of  recording his fifth complete game of the season. He struck out five, walked four and hit one batter in nine innings.

Monas' home run staked Hebert and The Rock to a 2-0 lead after one-half inning of play before Kosik's solo HR expanded the margin to 3-0 in the top of the second.

Mansfield got its first run of the game in the bottom of the second to make it a 3-1 game before The Rock came right back with two tallies in the top of the third to push the margin to 5-1.

That lead lasted less than a half inning, though, as Mansfield scored four runs in the bottom of the third to tie the score at 5-5.

That the way the score remained until the top of the fifth, when The Rock exploded for six runs on five hits and one Mansfield error. RBI singles by Haponski, Messer and junior first baseman Derek DiRuscia and Howard's two-run doubles were the key hits in the rally.

SRU extended its lead to 14-5 with three runs in the top of the sixth, when Kosik clobbered a pitch well over the 395-foot sign on the right-center field fence.

Messer's second RBI single of the game pushed The Rock lead to 15-5 in the top of the seventh before Mansfield got a run back in the bottom half of that frame to set the score at 15-6.

Haponski''s line-drive home run to straightaway center field, whcih sailed over the head of Mansfield center fielder Dan Chevalier and rolled to the fence in the deepest part of the stadium, produced the final three Rock runs and made the score 18-6.

Mansfield got a single run in the bottom of the eighth and two runs in the ninth to set the final score.

Notes:

Thursday's win avenged a pair of regular-season losses (5-1, 14-8) suffered by The Rock March 28 in Mansfield. 

Thursday's loss was the second suffered by Mansfield in as many days and gave the Mounties the dubious distinction of being the first team eliminated from the eight-team conference tournament. The loss may have also wrung down the final curtain on Mansfield's bid for a berth in the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional tournament. The Mounties were ranked fourth in this week's regional poll, but are expected to fall out of the top six and thus out of position for a playoff berth in the wake of its 0-for-2 showing in Johnstown.

The Rock, on the other hand, kept alive its quest for a fifth conference championship and a possible berth in the regional tournament. The Green and White were not among the eight teams ranked in this week's regional pol and, thus, will most likely need to win the conference championship to earn an NCAA tournament berth.

The winner of Friday's Rock-West Chester game will return to the field for a 3;30 p.m. game that day against California, which beat West Chester 8-3 in the third of four games played Thursday.

Mercyhurst handed East Stroudsburg a 7-2 setback in Thursday's second game to advance to Friday's 12:30 p.m. game against the loser of Thursday's final game between Indiana and Kutztown.

Click here for the latest scores and updates on the PSAC Baseball Championships.