WEST CHESTER, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University baseball team's 2022 season came to an end following a 2-1 NCAA Tournament loss to West Chester University Thursday.
SRU, which also lost to Seton Hill earlier in the day in the double elimination tournament, ends the year with a 33-18 record which is the program's highest win total since 2009.
Thursday evening's game was an impressive pitcher's duel that saw starters
Ricky Mineo (6-4) and his counterpart Braeden Fausnaught (8-2) come through with equally impressive performances before turning the game over to
Ethan Edkins and Kyle Lazer, who were both great in relief as well.
Mineo went seven innings, allowing just two runs on three hits and four walks while striking out four batters. Edkins pitched a perfect eighth inning with one strikeout. Fausnaught had 12 strikeouts while scattering six hits and one run over seven innings. Lazer earned the save by pitching two shutout innings.
Connor Hamilton broke the Slippery Rock single-season home run record when he hit his 17th homer of the year, a towering shot far over the left field wall in the fourth inning.
Koby Bubash went 2-for-4 while
Alex Robenolt,
Joel Spishock,
Luke Trueman and
Joe Ehland all had hits as well to round out SRU's offensive leaders. Ehland also stole one base, his team-leading ninth of the year.
After West Chester centerfielder Zack Wright made a great leaping catch to rob Hamilton of a home run in the top of the first, Luke Cantwell connected on a two-run single in the Golden Rams' half of the frame to give WCU an early lead.
The two-run West Chester lead held until the fourth inning when Hamilton crushed his record-clinching home run over the left field wall to make it a one-run game.
Mineo settled in following the first inning as he went on to hold the Golden Rams scoreless and to just one hit over the next four innings, keeping Slippery Rock in the game with just a one-run deficit.
Slippery Rock had a great opportunity to push across the game-tying run as Bubash led off the sixth with a single followed two batters later by a Robenolt base hit to give The Rock runners on first and second with just one out. However, Fausnaught worked out of the jam with back-to-back strikeouts to get out the inning unscathed.
Mineo pitched another scoreless inning in the sixth while
Luke Trueman led off the seventh with a single before taking second on a wild pitch. However, Fausnaught once again managed to not give up a run as he posted two more strikeouts with a groundout sandwiched in between to maintain the 2-1 lead.
From there, The Rock and Golden Rams traded scoreless innings as pitching continued to dominate the game. SRU could never quite find the game-tying run in the contest's waning moments as Lazer closed out the contest by erasing a leadoff single by Spishock in the ninth by forcing a game-ending double play.
West Chester improves to 30-11 and will now play Seton Hill in a best of three series that will see the winner move onto next week's super regional.
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