The Elizabethtown College baseball team entered Sunday’s doubleheader at Moravian with one of the top pitching staffs in the Landmark Conference. Though the Blue Jays had strong outings from senior Kristopher Davis in game one and sophomore Kevin Elwell in game two, the Greyhound’s came out on top. The hosts won game one 3-2 in 10 innings and then completed the sweep with a 3-0 shutout in game two.
In game one, Moravian’s Charles Savite’s one-out single in the bottom of the 10th gave the Greyhounds the walk-off victory. Etown and Moravian played to a 2-2 tie through the first seven innings, and there were only two hits in extras, both off of Moravian bats.
The Blue Jays displayed a threat in the top of the ninth when sophomore Colby Smith and junior Parke Martin were both hit by pitches, but the Greyhounds reliever, Ian Carbone, got out of his own jam by getting first-year Austin Kibler to fly out to right.
Junior Sean Jones delivered back-to-back walks to start the 10th inning before Savite put a 0-1 pitch through the hole between the third baseman and shortstop to score Colin Case with the game-winning run.
Davis started and went eight innings for the Blue Jays. While his run of starts with six strikeouts or more came to an end, he still posted a respectable stat line of nine hits allowed, two earned runs, no walks and two strikeouts. Davis improved his strikeout-to-walk ratio to 30:1 on the year.
“We didn’t get the results we wanted, but overall we played very fundamentally sound baseball and had two very competitive games against an excellent Moravian team,” Davis said. “Both games were tight games from start to finish, but they found a way to capitalize on one of our few mistakes. We pitched very well and played clean defense, however our offense struggled at times. It was one of those times where both teams play very good baseball and unfortunately we ended up on the losing side in both games.”
Senior Alex Holbert led the offense with two hits, but the Jays were limited to three for the game and scored both of their runs on a third-inning error.
Dan Morrin struck out four E-town players over 7.2 innings, allowing just the two unearned runs. Hunter Guard pitched a perfect top of the 10th for his first win of the season.
“The Landmark is a very competitive league top to bottom. As a team we need to focus on the task at hand and not look too far into the future,” Davis said. “We just need to take it one pitch, one at-bat, one inning at a time. If we can do that and learn from our mistakes to make adjustments we will be successful.”
In game two, Elwell was outdueled by the Greyhound starter Ryan Kahn. Kahn fanned eight and gave up only three hits over seven innings. He got all of the offensive support he needed in the second and third innings.
Moravian’s Ryan Luke singled back through the box to scored Savite to give the Greyhounds the lead, 1-0, in the bottom of the second. Moravian would tack on two more to extend their lead to 3-0.
Etown just could not solve Kahn, going down in order in the first, third, fifth and seventh frames. E-town never got a runner past second base, but stranded runners at first and second in the top of the sixth.
Senior Luke Gatti, Holbert, and Jones each recorded a hit for the Blue Jays. Elwell scattered five hits and only one of the three runs by Moravian was charged to him. He walked three and struck out one, falling to 1-3 for the season.
“From a pitching and defensive stand point, I thought we did very well,” Gatti said. “Davis and Elwell did a great job on the mound, pounding the strike zone, and our defense did a great job backing them up to make outs while only committing one error in the 14 innings we played today.”
The Blue Jays closed out the series on Monday, trying to steal one from the Greyhounds. Etown jumped out early with two runs in the top of the first inning, but the Greyhounds responded, scoring one of their own in the bottom half of the first and two more in the fourth. Moravian would end up with a 6-4 victory and a three-game sweep of the Blue Jays.
Junior Zack Tomasko allowed nine hits and three earned runs but the game ended in the loss, his second of the season. Gatti drove in two runs to lead the Blue Jays offense.
On Wednesday, the Blue Jays opened up a three-game series with the University of Scranton.
The Blue Jays pushed five runs across the plate in the second inning to take a 6-1 lead over the visiting squad, however, the Royals scored six runs of their own in the top of the third inning to take a 7-6 lead. The Royals never relinquished that lead, scoring seven runs in the fourth inning and eight in the fifth inning en route to a 22-13 victory over the Blue Jays.
First-year Anthony Lippy started on the mound for the Blue Jays, going two and a third innings, allowing four earned runs and striking out one. First-year Nick Lorenz hit his first career home run in the loss.
Etown will host Juniata on Friday and Saturday for another three-game series, completing a nine-game in seven-day streak. All nine games are against Landmark Conference opponents.
“We always have a goal to make it to the conference playoffs,” Gatti said. “If we play the way we’re capable of playing, I feel we can finish in one of the top 4 spots to make it to the playoffs. If we keep pitching well, playing solid defense, and having quality at-bats, we can do well and go far in this conference.”
