JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team increased its winning streak to 10 games with a doubleheader sweep of Pitt-Johnstown Saturday afternoon at Point Stadium in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Slippery Rock produced a season-high run total in its 17-10 victory in game one before cruising to the sweep with a 12-6 win in game two.
The victories improve The Rock's record to 14-5 overall and 6-0 in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference competition. With 28 games remaining in the regular season, Slippery Rock has already eclipsed its win total from a season ago. Pitt-Johnstown falls to 10-16 on the year overall and 0-6 in PSAC West competition with the losses.
Saturday's wins were significant for a variety of reasons. Slippery Rock's current 10-game winning streak is tied for the seventh longest in program history. The victories were also the 950th and 951st in the career of head coach
Jeff Messer. He is just the 18th coach in Division II history to record at least 950 wins.
Tyler Walters slugged a pair of home runs, the 28th and 29th of his career, to jump from fourth place to second place in The Rock record books for home runs in a career. Walters' first home run of the day moved him past Matt Adams and into a three-way tie for second place all-time while his second homer bumped him into sole possession of second place ahead of Mike Gunn and Kevin Keryan. Walters is now 11 home runs away from tying Nate Thimons, who hit 40 home runs from 1996-99 for first place in school history.
Walters finished the doubleheader going a combined 8-for-9 with seven runs scored, 11 RBIs, four doubles and two home runs. After a relatively slow start to the year, Walters has come on as of late and now leads The Rock in home runs (four), RBIs (27), doubles (nine) all the while raising his batting average over 100 points in the last seven games to a healthy .348.
On a day in which every Rock batter found success
James Divosevic and
Christian Porterfield also stood out over the doubleheader. Porterfield was 5-for-8 with two runs, eight RBIs, three doubles and one home run while Divosevic went 5-for-8 with five runs and one RBI. Porterfield now has 23 RBIs on the year and Divosevic leads SRU in on-base percentage at .500.
Joe Campagna also had two multi-hit games against UPJ, finishing the day 4-for-9 with three runs and one RBI.
GAME ONE: Slippery Rock 17 – Pitt-Johnstown 10
The opener was an offensive slugfest that saw The Rock and Mountain Cats combine for 27 runs and 26 hits.
The Rock trailed UPJ 4-2 following the first inning before Slippery Rock exploded for six runs in the second and two more in the fourth to build a 10-4 lead. Pitt-Johnstown added six more runs in the final three innings, but it was no match for SRU, which produced seven insurance runs over the fifth and sixth innings on the way to its seven-run victory.
All nine Rock starters registered at least one hit with six players compiling at least two hits in game one. Walters and Porterfield combined to go 6-for-8 with six runs scored, 11 RBI and two home runs. Porterfield drove in six runs and had one home run while Walters scored four times, drove in five runs and also blasted one home run while stealing one base.
Luca Fuscardo went 2-for-4 as part of a four-run, one-RBI, one-stolen base outing. The trio of Divosevic, Campagna and
Matt Mandes all tallied two hits as well with Mandes driving in a pair of runs on a double.
Carson Kessler,
Frankie Jezioro and
Mitchell Wood had one hit apiece. Jezioro also stole a base, his sixth of the season which ties him with Fuscardo for the team lead.
Alex Pantuso improved to 2-0 on the year after scattering six runs on four hits and six walks while striking out four batters over four innings. Pantuso settled down after a shaky first inning and surrendered just two hits and two runs over his final three innings pitched.
Josh Coleman,
Jay Cortese and
Chris Anastas all threw an inning of relief out of The Rock's bullpen. Coleman had three strikeouts and one walk in his inning of work as he improved his innings without an earned run allowed streak to 10.2.
GAME TWO: Slippery Rock 12 – Pitt-Johnstown 6
Any fear of The Rock's bats cooling off in game two were quickly put to rest as The Rock rattled off seven runs in the second inning and never looked back en route to its 12-6 victory. Saturday's seven-run second inning was the largest run output in an inning for SRU this season.
The decisive inning started with
Tyler Merigliano coming through with a two-run triple that plated Campagna and Wood. Merigliano then scored on a Divosevic single. Later in the inning with two runners on base, Walters sent a pitch over the fence in left field for a three-run homer. In his second at-bat of the frame, Campagna capped off the big inning with an RBI-single that brought Kessler home.
Pitt-Johnstown came back with two runs in the bottom half of the second, but never seriously threatened The Rock in the nightcap as SRU quickly got both runs back in the third to extend its lead out to 9-2, which was more than enough for starting pitcher
Preston Falascino, who earned the complete game victory.
With ample run support, Falascino did a great job of navigating a dangerous UPJ batting order, allowing six runs on 11 hits and throwing the first complete game of the season by a Rock pitcher to improve his stellar record to 4-1 this year.
Walters finished game two 5-for-5 with three runs, one home run, six RBI and a pair of doubles. Divosevic added three hits to extend his hitting streak to 11 games to go with four runs and one RBI, while Porterfield, Kessler, Campagna and Merigliano all had two hits each. Campagna has now reached base in 14 straight games.
Slippery Rock will look to finish off the four-game series against the Mountain Cats with another doubleheader sweep Monday at Critchfield Park. First pitch of game one is scheduled for 1 p.m.
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