CARY, N.C. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team split a pair of games Saturday at the USA Baseball Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina by defeating Franklin Pierce and losing to Saint Thomas Aquinas.
 
The Rock opened the day with a 7-6 win against Franklin Pierce before losing to Saint Thomas Aquinas, 5-2. The split moves Slippery Rock's record to 4-5 on the season.
 
The trio of Tyler Walters, Luca Fuscardo and James Divosevic led SRU over the two games. Walters went a combined 4-for-9 with one home run and five RBI. Fuscardo extended his hitting streak to nine games while also scoring twice, stealing one base and driving in two more runs. Divosevic capped off the talented trio's performance Saturday by going 5-for-11 with two runs and two RBI.
 
Slippery Rock 7 – Franklin Pierce 6
Slippery Rock led 3-2 through five innings before a four-run barrage in the sixth broke the game open for The Rock.
 
With two outs and two runners on base, Fuscardo started the big inning with an RBI-single that was followed promptly with a three-run home run by Walters to put Slippery Rock up 7-2 before Franklin Pierce was finally able to get out of the inning.
 
Franklin Pierce rallied back with four runs of its own in the seventh inning, but Rock relief pitcher Josh Coleman would come on to help keep the opposition scoreless over the remainder of the game, giving SRU the one-run victory.
 
Alex Pantuso earned his first win of the season with seven strikeouts and four runs allowed over 6.1 innings. Coleman came on for fellow Rock reliever Shawn Holman to allow just one hit en route to his first save of the season.
 
Slippery Rock recorded 13 hits against FPU. Divosevic paced SRU with three hits while Fuscardo, Walters, Joe Campagna and Mitchell Wood all tallied multi-hit games as well. Walters finished the game with four RBI.
 
Saint Thomas Aquinas 5 – Slippery Rock 2
However, Slippery Rock was unable to make it a perfect day as Saint Thomas Aquinas took advantage of two early runs on the way to a 5-2 victory.
 
Slippery Rock cut the Spartans' lead down to one run when Walters came through with an RBI-double in the third inning that plated Divosevic, but Saint Thomas Aquinas quickly answered back with three runs over the next two innings to jump out to a 5-1 lead.
 
SRU added a final run in the ninth inning, but couldn't complete the comeback in the eventual three-run loss.
 
Preston Falascino (1-1) pitched 4.2 innings for The Rock, allowing five runs and striking out five batters before giving way to Wyatt Daugherty who pitched the final 4.1 innings, striking out a career-high six batters.
 
Divosevic, Walters and Carson Kessler all had two hits as well with Walters and Divosevic each driving in runs.
 
Slippery Rock will continue its time at the USA Baseball Training Complex on Sunday with a doubleheader against Dominican. First pitch of game one is scheduled for 11 a.m.