CARY, N.C. - The Slippery Rock University baseball team combined timely hitting and a great outing from starting pitcher Tanner Stanz to defeat LIU Post, 2-1, Saturday at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina.
 
The win, Slippery Rock's third consecutive victory, improves The Rock's record to 4-3 on the season overall. LIU Post, which was coming off of a shutout victory against Atlantic Region mainstay East Stroudsburg University, drops to 5-6 in 2019 with the loss.
 
The Rock's victory was also the 998th in the career of head coach Jeff Messer. Once SRU wins two more games Messer will become just the 18th coach in NCAA Division II history to reach 1,000 career wins.
 
As has been the case all season, Stanz (2-0) was great for The Rock on Saturday. The senior struck out seven batters over eight scoreless innings while scattering four hits and one walk. Stanz gave up just two hits following the first inning. He has yet to allow an earned run in 20 innings pitched this season.
 
Stanz gave way to Wyatt Daugherty in the ninth inning, who in turned closed out his second game in as many days. The save, Daugherty's second of the season, moved him into a tie with former Rock standout John Kovalik for first place in school history with 16 career saves, which also ranks eighth all-time in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.
 
Offensively, Slippery Rock was limited to seven hits, its second lowest output of the year. Joe Campagna pushed his hitting streak to seven games after a 2-for-4, one-run day that included his PSAC-high seventh double of the year. Abraham Mow and Tyler Merigliano each drove in a run on matching 1-for-3 outings with Mow's hit coming by way of a double.
 
Frankie Jezioro, Ray Scala and Cody Cooper rounded out The Rock's top performers with one hit each. Cooper also tallied his first stolen base of the season. Campagna and Scala have both reached base safely in all of SRU's seven contests in 2019.
 
Stanz was matched nearly pitch for pitch by LIU Post's Noah Lorenzo. The two hurlers traded scoreless frames over the first six innings before The Rock finally broke through in the seventh.
 
Campagna and Mow led off the bottom of the seventh with back-to-back doubles with Mow's extra-base hit plating Campagna for the game's first run. Merigliano then proceeded to drive a single down the right field line to score Mow and push SRU's lead to 2-0 before Lorenzo could get out of the inning.
 
Following a scoreless eighth inning, Daugherty came on for Stanz in the ninth. Christopher Wasson hit a leadoff double and later with one out in the inning advanced to third on a passed ball with the game-tying run coming to the plate.
 
Wasson would then score on a sacrifice fly by Anthony Vaglica, but LIU Post's comeback bid would end there as Daugherty sealed the game by forcing Andy Camilo to fly out in foul territory to give The Rock a 2-1 win.
 
Lorenzo (1-3) suffered the complete-game loss after allowing two runs on seven hits while striking out 10 batters over eight innings. Leadoff hitter Giovanni Ciaccio went 2-for-4 for LIU Post as well.
 
Slippery Rock continues its time at the USA Baseball National Training Complex 5 p.m. Sunday against Franklin Pierce University. SRU defeated FPU 9-7 on March 8.
 
 
 
 
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