BEL AIR, Md. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team split a doubleheader against Kutztown University Sunday afternoon at the Hartford Sports Complex in Bel Air, Maryland.
Slippery Rock won game one, 9-7, before dropping the nightcap to the Golden Bears in extra innings, 5-1. SRU exits the second weekend of its 2017 season with an overall record of 3-4.
Christian Porterfield went 4-for-7 with two runs scored and two RBI.
Luca Fuscardo extended his hitting streak to seven games by going a combined 3-for-7 at the plate while also scoring three runs.
Carson Kessler had two hits, one home run and three RBI over the doubleheader.
GAME ONE: Slippery Rock 9 – Kutztown 7
After giving up two runs in the first inning Slippery Rock rallied with five runs with three scores in the second and three more in the fifth.
Kyle Wise,
Ray Scala and
James Divosevic all had RBI-singles in the second while Wise also coming through with a two-run single in the fifth that plated
Tyler Walters and Fuscardo.
However, The Rock's 5-2 lead would be short-lived as Kutztown answered back with a four-run sixth inning to move ahead of The Rock 6-5. Not to be outdone, Slippery Rock fired back with four runs of its own in the bottom of the frame to re-take the lead, 9-6, thanks to a two-run triple from Porterfield and a two-run home run by Kessler. The home run was the first of the year for a Rock player.
Kutztown trimmed one run off of The Rock's lead in the seventh, but SRU relief pitcher
Josh Coleman stranded two runners on base to end KU's comeback hopes and give Slippery Rock the 9-7 win.
The trio of Porterfield, Kessler and Wise all recorded two hits. Wise drove in three runs while Porterfield and Kessler had two RBI each. Scala also had two hits from the bottom of The Rock's batting order.
Matt Gordon started for The Rock. He went five innings, allowing five runs and 11 hits while throwing three strikeouts.
Wyatt Daugherty (1-0) pitched one inning and was credited with the win while Coleman earned his first save of the year for closing out the seventh.
GAME TWO: Kutztown 5 – Slippery Rock 1 (8 Innings)
Slippery Rock's bats went cold in game two as The Rock managed just one run in the first inning of the eventual extra-inning defeat.
SRU held its 1-0 lead for 5.2 innings thanks to starting pitcher
Preston Falascino, who followed up his first start of the year with another great effort Sunday. Over six innings, Falascino had a career-high 11 strikeouts while giving up just three hits, one walk and one run, which came with two outs in the sixth inning on an RBI-triple by Joe Santospago.
Following a scoreless bottom of the sixth by SRU, Coleman made his second appearance of the day in the seventh and promptly struck out two Kutztown batters and got a third batter to groundout to get out of the inning.
Slippery Rock put two runners on base in the bottom of the seventh, but was unable to push across the game-winning run as the game went to extra innings where Kutztown blew the game open with four runs in the eighth inning on the way to a 5-1 win.
Coleman (0-1) took the loss for The Rock with one unearned run allowed over 1.1 innings pitched.
Jay Cortese pitched the final two thirds of the eighth inning, giving up three runs on two hits with one strikeout and one walk.
Fuscardo and Porterfield both tallied two hits in game two with Fuscardo scoring The Rock's only run on a Kessler RBI.
Frankie Jezioro and
Joe Campagna had The Rock's other two hits.
Slippery Rock will play six game in four days at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina March 11-14.
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