ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. — Twice they were down and twice they rallied. The never-say-die Elizabethtown College baseball team is trying to re-write its 2011 script in 2012. The Blue Jays used the final day of the regular season to punch their ticket to the conference tournament and Thursday night they broke a 4-4 tie in the top of the ninth to open this year's conference tourney with a 5-4 upset of No. 2 seed Lebanon Valley at Owls Field in West Lawn.
Kevin Berkheiser led the offense with a 2-for-4 game at the dish. Berkheiser doubled in two runs in the top of the fourth as E-town (20-20) erased a 2-0 deficit.
The Jays would be forced to fight from behind again, as Jordan Witmer knocked in second baseman Ryan Schwartz in the bottom of the fifth to help Lebanon Valley (24-17) reclaim the lead at 3-2.
A two-out throwing error in the top of the seventh on a
Mike Stobbe grounder to third allowed E-town to keep the inning alive. It was the crack of daylight the Jays needed to bounce back once more.
Tyler Weary,
Tim Rosser and
Luke Gatti all hit consecutive singles. Rosser's and Gatti's scored Stobbe and Weary, respectively, to reverse the lead in Elizabethtown's favor, 4-3.
LVC outscored the Blue Jays 29-1 in a three-game sweep during the teams' regular season meetings. The Blue and Gray put it out of mind and out of sight Thursday, though. Even when the Flying Dutchmen tied the game in the bottom of the seventh on Phill Dohner's RBI single to center field, his third hit of the night, the Jays just dusted it off and moved on with their business.
Taras Letnaunchyn replaced
Matt Ruth on the hill after the Dohner single. Ruth kept E-town in it, not letting the LVC bats produce anywhere near the offense they did back in early April. He went 6.2 innings and gave up eight hits while walking five and striking out three. Letnaunchyn proceeded to strike out the first batter he faced and eventually earned his seventh win of the year when Rosser scored on an error by Witmer, LVC's catcher, in the top of the ninth.
Todd Leister faced four batters in the bottom of the ninth and got Dohner to pop out to first baseman Gatti for the final out. Leister, a senior from Stanhope, N.J., earned his sixth save of the season on the same day he was named one of E-town's three All-Commonwealth Conference Second Team picks.
Weary was 2-for-5, Rosser 2-for-3 with two walks and Gatti 2-for-4. The trio, along with Berkheiser, combined for all eight E-town hits.
Lee Webber suffered his second loss of the year due to the Jays' ninth inning score. LVC starter Caleb Fick pitched into the seventh, like his counterpart Ruth. Fick allowed seven hits and four runs, all of which were unearned. Dohner (three hits) and Jacob Rhody (two) had the only multi-hit efforts for the Dutchmen.
Elizabethtown will now face Messiah, a 4-1 upset winner over No. 1 seed Alvernia earlier Thursday. The Blue Jays and Falcons meet Friday at 3 p.m. E-town took 2-of-3 from Messiah last weekend to get in the playoffs, but Thursday's results are evidence that regular season gams mean very little when a shot at a championship is on the line.
