CLARION, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team closed out its 2016 season on a high note with a doubleheader sweep at Clarion University in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division play Saturday afternoon.
SRU (13-36) downed the Golden Eagles (10-32) in the opener, 6-2, before finishing off the doubleheader with an 8-5 win in the nightcap. The wins combined with a doubleheader split with Clarion on Friday give The Rock a 3-1 series victory over CU.
Saturday's wins were the 936th and 937th of Rock head coach
Jeff Messer's career. The victories moved him ahead of Buddy Bolding for 18th place on the NCAA Division II all-time wins list. In addition to his lofty spot on the career wins list, Messer is also eighth among all active NCAA Division II head coaches in career victories.
In his final collegiate games,
Alex Bell was a combined 5-for-8 with one run, six RBI and one home run. The homer was his 11th of the season. Bell ended the season batting .409 with a team-leading 51 RBI.
GAME ONE: Slippery Rock 6 – Clarion 2
Slippery Rock's string of quality performances from its starting pitchers carried over from Friday's doubleheader split against Clarion into Saturday thanks to
Matt Gordon's (5-4) great outing.
The Rock trailed 2-1 after three innings, but Gordon proceeded to toss four scoreless innings while the SRU offense tacked on five additional runs late to pull away with the 6-2 victory.
SRU tied the game up in the fourth inning off of a
Ray Scala single that plated
Carson Kessler from second base. Scala has now produced four of his six hits this season in his last four games played.
Slippery Rock put the game away by pouring on four runs in the sixth inning. With one out in the inning, the trio of
Frankie Jezioro, Kessler and
Matt Mandes produced back-to-back-to-back singles with Mandes' hit bringing in Jezioro to put SRU up 3-2. An infield single by Scala then loaded the bases followed by a Clarion fielding miscue on a
Ty Zimmerman ground ball that allowed two Rock runs to score. Slippery Rock concluded its scoring barrage with a
James Divosevic sacrifice fly that scored Scala, who moved over to third on the Clarion error.
Gordon protected The Rock's four-run lead by giving up just one hit over the sixth and seventh innings to secure the win. Gordon finished the game by striking out six batters and scattering nine hits and two runs on 95 pitches. The complete game was his third of the season. His six strikeouts matched a season-high; Gordon also fanned six against Pitt-Johnstown on March 20.
Bell, Jezioro, Kessler and Scala all recorded two-hit games while Bell, Zimmerman, Divosevic, Mandes and Scala registered one RBI apiece for The Rock.
Clarion's Tyler Delval took the loss for the Golden Eagles after giving up six runs on 12 hits to go with six strikeouts in a complete-game effort.
GAME TWO: Slippery Rock 8 – Clarion 5
Slippery Rock scored at least one run in each of the first four innings en route to an 8-5 win against Clarion in game two.
Bell led the way for SRU in game two with a 3-for-4, one-home run, five-RBI performance. After going hitless in the opener,
Tyler Walters ended his season with a strong 3-for-3 effort in game two that included two runs scored, one RBI and one double. Zimmerman also notched a three-hit effort in the win as well.
Other top performers for Slippery Rock in game two included
Mitchell Wood (2-for-3, one run, one RBI) and
James Divosevic (two runs, one RBI).
Shawn Holman (2-4) picked up the win on the mound after going five innings and allowing five runs, only two of which were earned, on seven hits and four walks while also striking out four batters. Holman is 2-0 in his last two starts.
Andrew Null was nearly perfect in relief of Holman with a walk being his only mistake in two scoreless innings on the way to his first save of the season.
Already leading 3-0, Slippery Rock scored two runs in the second inning off of RBI-singles from Divosevic and Bell. SRU promptly made it a 6-0 game in the third inning thanks to a two-out run-scoring single by Wood that plated Jezioro, who singled and stole second base earlier in the inning.
Clarion got one run back in the bottom of the third, but Bell proceeded to put the game away by hitting a home run with Walters on base the following half inning to give The Rock a commanding 8-1 lead.
The Golden Eagles made things interesting with one run in the fourth and three more in the fifth, but Null's dominant work out of The Rock's bullpen in the sixth and seventh sealed the season-ending win for SRU.
