Monday, April 28
West Point, N.Y.
6 PM
Lehigh University
7
at
9
Army
Lehigh falls 9-7 at Army in regular-season Patriot League finale
4/28/2014 10:10:00 PM | Baseball
WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Lehigh baseball team dropped a high-scoring 9-7 battle at Army Monday evening at Doubleday Field. The game was the make-up contest from the March 30 game that was postponed due to rain. The outcome evened the series at two as Army claimed a share of the regular-season Patriot League title and improved to 15-5 with the win. The Mountain Hawks finished the regular season with a 10-10 league mark that is part of a 23-21 overall record.
"It wasn't the cleanest game we've played, but five games in three days can be a little difficult for the kids," said head coach Sean Leary. "It wasn't our best performance, but we battled offensively and pitched well the last five innings. We'll build off the positives today and certainly work to fill in some of the areas we have to work on between now and the playoffs."
Looking like it would be a slugfest, the game sat at 9-7 through 4.5 innings before each pitching staff settled in to quiet the opposition's bats. Senior Jayme Edwards and sophomore Kevin Boswick combined to throw four scoreless innings to keep Lehigh in the contest, but the Mountain Hawk offense couldn't put any more runs across the plate. Both teams finished the game with 10 hits and three errors.
Junior John Elson recorded two RBI and went 2-for-4 at the plate. Three other Mountain Hawks recorded RBI and junior Justin Pacchioli scored a pair of runs.
Army plated a run in each of the first two innings to open the scoring. Lehigh answered in the third as Pacchioli roped a leadoff double before sophomore Mike Garzillo drew a walk. Junior John Elson followed with a two-run double to tie the game at two. Senior Tyler Brong then hit an RBI single to score Elson as Lehigh took a 3-2 lead.
Lehigh starter Nick Stephens began the bottom half of the third by hitting a batter and surrendering a walk before freshman David Young came into relieve the starter. A two-run single off the bat of Harold Earls and a bases-loaded hit by pitch helped Army plate two more before junior Nick Macaione took the mound. Daniel Cortes sent a bases-loaded single to score one more but senior Brandon Wilt made a strong throw to the plate to throw out Ben Smith and end the inning as Army took a 6-3 lead.
The Mountain Hawks responded in the top of the fourth as Wilt sent a leadoff double to right before Pacchioli was hit by a pitch. The runners each advanced a base on a deep flyout from Garzillo before senior Joe Abeln sent a single through the left side to score Wilt. Junior Connor Faust hit a hard grounder that Army shortstop Alex Jensen couldn't handle as both Elson and Pacchioli came home to tie the ballgame at six.
Army answered right back with three runs on four hits and an error in the bottom half of the fourth to take a 9-6 lead less than halfway through the contest.
Junior Patrick Walshe drew a four-pitch walk to lead off the fifth before advancing to second on a wild pitch. Garzillo sent a two-out single up the middle to score Walshe and cut the Army lead to 9-7. Edwards took the mound in the fifth and held Army scoreless for three innings, but the Lehigh bats were quieted by Justin French and Brian Hapeman.
Boswick came on to throw the bottom of the eighth as Edwards finished his strong outing with no runs, two hits and two strikeouts in three innings of work. Boswick retired the Black Knights in order to send the game into the top of the ninth.
Walshe drew another four-pitch walk, his third base on balls of the game, to open the ninth as Johnny Griffith took the mound for Army. Pacchioli was hit by a pitch for the second time of the game to put runners on first and second with one out. Griffith came back to strike out the next two Mountain Hawks and earn the save as Army picked up the 9-7 win.
Macaione suffered the loss after allowing three runs, two of which were earned, in 1.1 innings of work. French picked up the win.
Lehigh will head to Army once again for the Patriot League Tournament semifinals May 10-11 for a best-of-three series. A doubleheader will be played on Saturday May 10 and the third game of the series will be played May 11 if necessary.
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