COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team's time at the 2016 Dinwiddie Invitational started on a down note Saturday, as Saint Thomas Aquinas University scored four runs over the final two innings to earn a 6-4 win over The Rock.
Slippery Rock (1-4) struck early thanks to a two-out home run from
Tyler Walters, his first of the season, in the opening inning. The one run was more than enough for Rock starter
Alex Pantuso early on as Pantuso dominated the Spartan batters through the first four innings with seven strikeouts and just one hit allowed.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1-0) eventually got to Pantuso for runs in the fifth and sixth innings to take 2-1 lead. However, Slippery Rock quickly answered back with two runs of its own in the bottom of the sixth to retake the lead, 3-2.
Jordan Faretta led off the inning with a single and was brought home off of
Frankie Jezioro's first collegiate home run.
Stephen McKee (0-2) came on in relief of Pantuso the following inning and threw a scoreless seventh frame, but the Spartans managed to post three runs in the eighth inning to take a 6-3 advantage.
SRU cut one run off its deficit in the bottom of the inning off of
Mitchell Wood's leadoff home run, but any thoughts of a comeback were put to rest as the Spartans' bullpen recorded six consecutive outs following Wood's home run and the Saint Thomas Aquinas bats added an additional run in the ninth to secure the 6-4 win.
Pantuso finished the game with a career-high 11 strikeouts over six innings while allowing only two runs on five hits and two walks. McKee went 1.1 innings, giving up three runs and throwing two strikeouts.
James Divosevic was on the mound for the final 1.2 innings of the contest, striking out two batters and surrendering one unearned run.
Walters was 2-for-3 on the day with one run, one RBI and one home run. In addition to Faretta's hit and the home runs by Jezioro and Wood, Matt Mendes also had a hit to round out Slippery Rock's top offensive performers.
Chris Pennell (1-0) got the win for the Spartans after giving up one run in two relief innings of starter Matt Kostalos. George Navedel tossed a perfect ninth inning for the save.
Slippery Rock returns to action Sunday for a pair of games against West Chester at 12 p.m. and Philadelphia at 6 p.m.
