ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. — With the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh and final inning and his team down a run, sophomore
Dillon Tagle delivered a two-run walk-off single to give the Elizabethtown College baseball team a 6-5 Commonwealth Conference win in game two of Sunday's doubleheader against the visiting Arcadia Knights.
The Blue Jays (10-9, 4-2), have now won four straight after also taking game one from the Knights (1-18, 0-9) on Sunday by a 7-1 margin.
In the first game,
Rob Cressman got the ball for his fourth start of the season. The sophomore from Pitman, N.J., would not disappoint, going six innings, striking out 10 while giving up one run on five hits. In his last three starts dating back to March 7, Cressman has given up just three runs in 19.1 innings of work and has won all three games for the Jays.
E-town gave Cressman a 1-0 lead to work with in the bottom of the first when leadoff hitter
Kyle Gable walked, stole second, advanced to third on a single and scored on an error. Gable went on to swipe three more bags in the game.
The score remained 1-0 until the bottom of the fourth when the Jays got creative on the base paths. Junior
Steve Motika reached on an infield single, then advanced on a sacrifice bunt and eventually scored on sacrifice fly. Later in the inning, when Tagle got picked off at second,
Matt Reade stole home to give the Blue Jays a 3-0 lead.
In the following inning, E-town put the game out of reach with four runs on five hits.
Kevin Berkheiser scored the first run of the inning on an Arcadia error. Later,
Andrew Gordon singled to center to knock in Gable, and
Tim Rosser doubled to plate Motika and Gordon to give the Jays a 7-0 lead.
Cressman's only hiccup came in the bottom of the sixth. The Knights put together three hits and scored a run on an RBI from Kyle Jackson.
Todd Leister finished out the game, putting down Arcadia 1-2-3 to secure the win.
Motika scored two runs in the contest and paced E-town's offense with two hits. In game one, the Blue Jays stole a season-high 10 bases. The team's previous high was four, set back on March 27 at Franklin & Marshall.
The victory in game two didn't come as easily for the Jays. The Knights jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on two walks and an E-town fielding error.
The Blue Jays got the run right back in the second on an RBI double by
Ian Smith to score Rosser.
E-town's starting pitcher
Matt Ruth did not give up a hit until the top of the fourth, but the Knights made it count with a Brandon Martin two-run homer. The Knights scored another run in the frame on an RBI groundout and held a 4-1 lead after four innings.
The Jays made it a two-run game in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI groundout by Gable to make it 4-2. Arcadia got its three run lead back in the top of the sixth, however, thanks to a triple, followed by another E-town error.
Pat Mulligan's RBI single in the bottom of the sixth inched the Jays to within two runs. Up next, Rosser followed with an RBI on a groundout to first to score Tagle to bring E-town to within one run.
Again, Leister got the nod in the seventh, escaping the inning without giving up a run.
In the final inning of play, the Jays loaded the bases, setting the stage for Tagle to play hero. Tagle roped a single up to middle, allowing Gordon and
Kyle Wilt to touch home for the come-from-behind 6-5 victory.
Leister picked up the win for the Jays. Motika again led the offense with a game-high three hits. The junior from Kutztown, Pa. has now hit safely in 13 straight games, with eight multi-hit games in that stretch.
The Blue Jays will play their fourth game in three days when they travel to York tomorrow to take on the York College Spartans at 3:30 p.m.
