LOCK HAVEN, Pa. – The Kutztown University baseball team earned its second straight split in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) on Sunday afternoon, suffering a 3-1 setback before taking down No. 18 Lock Haven University 5-3 in the final game of the weekend series to secure a 2-2 record.
KU's starting pitching continued its effectiveness against a Lock Haven side which came in as the batting average leaders in the PSAC and had averaged 10.3 runs per game. Kutztown has now split in each of its full series this season in conference play and needs just one more PSAC victory to equal last season's conference win total.
After Kutztown went 1-1 on Friday afternoon at home,
Stephen Wagner Jr. (Henderson, Nev./Boulder City (Western Oregon)) (0-2) took the mound to open the two-game set at LHU on Sunday. Wagner Jr., in his second start of the season, went 6.0 innings and gave up three runs, two of which were earned, scattering seven hits and striking out one.
In the second game of the day, veteran
Mike Kammerer (Allentown, Pa./Allentown Central Catholic) (3-2) was called on by manager
Chris Blum to deliver a quality start for KU to have a chance to down Lock Haven in the final game. Kammerer delivered, giving up just three earned runs in six innings and striking out five on 97 pitches.
Gavilan Fogarty-Harnish (Ephrata, Pa./Ephrata) then stepped in in the seventh to nail down the victory for Kammerer and the Golden Bears, earning his third save of the season.
Brady Carras (Coatesville, Pa./Coatesville Area), batting in the nine-hole, had three RBI on the day, including a two-RBI double which gave KU the lead for good in the second game.
Ryan Cox (Aliquippa, Pa./Hopewell (St. Bonaventure)) reached base in both games for the Maroon and Gold, extending his on-base streak to 21 games dating back to last season, and also scored three of KU's six runs on the day.
Nick Lafferty (Croydon, Pa./Archbishop Wood)'s hot-hitting continues as his season average rose to .452 following a 4-for-4 performance and an RBI in game two.
Dariel Richardson (Reading, Pa./Reading) also had an outstanding second game, going 3-for-3 with a run scored.
Game One
Wagner Jr. went toe-to-toe with LHU starter Avery Eddy to begin the day in cool, overcast conditions for April baseball. Eddy and Wagner Jr. kept both offenses off the board until the bottom of the third inning when Lock Haven struck for an unearned run, capitalizing on a KU error.
The Maroon and Gold answered right away in the top of the fourth via a
Mitch Pinder (Gilbertsville, Pa./Boyertown Area) RBI-double down the left field line, which scored Cox, evening the score at 1-all. Bald Eagle third baseman Keyshawn D'Orso began to heat up in the bottom of the fourth, however, breaking the tie with an RBI-single to center. D'Orso then added an insurance run for Lock Haven in the sixth with an RBI-double, putting it ahead 3-1.
Eddy (3-1) kept the Golden Bear offense from scoring in his final three innings of work, earning the win by silencing the KU bats to the tune of eight strikeouts in 6.0 innings. Closer Breton LaRose came in to finish it off, earning his fifth save of the season.
Game Two
Kutztown delivered the initial blow to open the final game of the weekend as
Collin Bishop (Laurel Springs, N.J./Highland Regional) delivered a two-out RBI in the first inning to plate Cox, putting KU up 1-0. Lafferty then gave the Golden Bears a 2-0 lead in the third with an RBI-single, scoring Cox for the second time in the game.
Lock Haven fought back, getting to Kammerer a bit in the middle innings, first scoring a run on an RBI-double in the third. The senior worked his way out of a jam to complete the third, but D'Orso made his presence felt, as he did in game one, in the fourth. After LHU beat out a single to open the frame, D'Orso squared up a Kammerer pitch and belted it over the fence in left center to put Lock Haven ahead for the first time in the game, 3-2.
The top of the fifth inning began without much promise for KU, going down in order with the first two batters as LHU induced a double play ball. However, a
Jake Augustus (Schnecksville, Pa./Northwestern Lehigh (Winthrop)) walk began to turn that around as Richardson then singled to put runners on first and second with two outs.
An error by the Lock Haven shortstop on a ball hit by
Tanner Miller (Elizabethville, Pa./Upper Dauphin Area) kept the inning alive and allowed Augustus to come home, tying the score at 3-all. Carras then stepped to the plate and delivered the timely hit his team needed with a two-RBI double to put Kutztown up 5-3.
Kammerer made quick work of LHU in the fifth and sixth innings, exiting for Fogarty-Harnish in the seventh. Fogarty-Harnish worked his way out of a first-and-third with one-out jam, striking out the final two Lock Haven batters to put an exclamation point on the come-from-behind victory.
KU will host a non-conference doubleheader in its next competition, taking on LeMoyne University at home Wednesday, April 11 at 1 p.m.
