James Kantner vs. Maritime 5/19/17
8
Elizabethtown ETOWN 2-3
9
Winner Misericordia MIS 5-2
Elizabethtown ETOWN
2-3
8
Final
9
Misericordia MIS
5-2
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Elizabethtown ETOWN 0 2 2 0 3 0 0 0 1 8 11 2
Misericordia MIS 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 2 4 9 14 3

W: Ian McCole (2-0) L: Brndjar, Andrew (0-1)

Game Recap: Baseball |

Misericordia stuns Blue Jays with late comeback

FORT PIERCE, Fla. -- Elizabethtown held a six-run lead in the late going against Misericordia, Wednesday, until the Cougars surged back with eight runs in the final three innings, including four in the ninth, to walk off with a 9-8 victory.

James Kantner drilled a pair of run-scoring triples, putting the Blue Jays in position to knock off a Cougar team receiving votes in the D3baseball.com Top 25 Poll. The junior right fielder's first triple scored Brennan Snyder and Colby Smith for a 7-1 lead in the fifth. Then in the ninth, with his team holding a 7-5 lead, Kantner pulled a ball inside the bag at first to bring home Derek Manning.

While RBI singles from Sean Boylan, Parker Abate and Kenny Jarema helped Misericordia (5-2) tie the game, the Jays couldn't help but feel that much of the damage done by the Cougars was self-inflicted. Elizabethtown issued three walks, threw a wild pitch and committed a pair of errors in the inning. Shane Hughes worked a five-pitch walk against Mason Abate, who was facing just his second batter. Ironically, the base on balls brought in Mason's brother, Parker, home with the winning run for the Cougars.

Misericordia's late heroics left Blue Jays' starting pitcher Braden Stinar empty-handed. Stinar delivered a quality start, giving up three runs on nine hits and striking out six in 6.2 innings. E-town's (2-3) bullpen allowed six runs (five earned) on five hits and four walks in 1.2 innings.

Manning, Snyder, Smith and Kantner did a bulk of the work offensively for the Blue and Gray. The 4-7 hitters in the lineup combined for nine of the Jays' 12 hits. Manning went 3-for-5 with a double and three runs scored; Snyder tripped and scored a pair of runs; Smith was 3-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and two runs scored; and Kantner knocked in three via his two triples.

Manning, a sophomore from East Petersburg, has unsurprisingly made a major impact after a year away in 2017. He's collected multiple hits in all five games of the Jays' trip to Fort Pierce, Fla., so far and is hitting a team best .545 with five extra-base hits.

Jarema had three hits and two RBIs for the Cougars. Hughes was 2-for-5 and drove in two, while Boylan, Abate and Chad Bell also had two hits apiece.

Misericordia might not have been in position to steal the win if not for the work of pitcher Ian McCole. He relieved starter Zach Mason in the third inning and ended up going the rest of the way, allowing four runs on seven hits and recording four strikeouts in 6.2 innings.

Elizabethtown is back on the field at 10 a.m. Thursday for a doubleheader with Monmouth (Ill.).
 
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