JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University baseball team lost its opening game of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament to Shippensburg University, 9-2, Wednesday morning at Point Stadium in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Slippery Rock will now play East Stroudsburg University, which lost to Mercyhurst 14-0 on Wednesday, in an elimination game Thursday at 9:30 a.m. Slippery Rock defeated East Stroudsburg, 9-4, in a non-conference game earlier in the season.
The loss drops The Rock's overall record to 26-19 on the season while Shippensburg improves to 29-20-1.
Shippensburg starting pitcher Gabe Mosser (7-5) held Slippery Rock to just five hits, SRU's third lowest total in a game this year, over nine innings.
Four of the five hits went for extra bases as
Joe Campagna had a triple while the trio of
Tyler Walters,
Christian Porterfield and
Kyle Wise all recorded doubles.
James Divosevic accounted for The Rock's lone single.
Mitchell Wood drove in one run with Porterfield supplying an RBI as well, his 43rd of the season.
Alex Pantuso (5-2) got the start on the mound for Slippery Rock. He had seven strikeouts over five innings while surrendering seven runs, four of which were earned, on six hits and four walks. The seven-strikeout day increased his yearly total to 87, the second most in a single-season in Rock history and just five away from the SRU record.
Josh Coleman came on in relief of Pantuso in the sixth and pitched the final three innings for Slippery Rock, allowing two runs, one earned, on three hits while striking out three batters.
SRU got off to a shaky start as Shippensburg produced three runs off of two hits, two walks and two wild pitches in the bottom of the first while Mosser held Slippery Rock hitless over the first two innings.
Slippery Rock seemed to turn things around starting in the third inning when Campagna hit a leadoff triple to right field and scored on the next at-bat thanks to a sacrifice fly out by Wood to cut Shippensburg's lead down to 3-1.
However, the Raiders broke the game open by scoring once in the fourth inning, three times in the fifth and once more in the sixth all the while Mosser retired 14 straight Rock batters to take an 8-1 lead into the eighth inning.
Shippensburg added an insurance run in the eighth before Walters and Porterfield ripped back-to-back two-out doubles in the ninth to tally The Rock's second run of the day. Following Porterfield's RBI-double, Mosser recorded the game's final out to finalize the Shippensburg victory.
Prior to Wednesday's game Slippery Rock sophomore pitcher
Chris Anastas was named the 2017 PSAC Baseball Champion Scholar. The PSAC Champion Scholar Awards are modeled after the NCAA's Elite 89 award and honor the student-athlete with the top grade point average who is competing at the site of each of the PSAC's 23 team championship finals.
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