Lions Split With La Roche

ERIE, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend baseball team split an Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) doubleheader with La Roche on Thursday afternoon.  The Lions took game one 3-0 before the Redhawks got revenge with a 6-3 victory in the nightcap.

In a matchup of the top two teams in the conference, the Lions gave the ball to Ryan Jacobs (Port Vue, PA/South Allegheny) on the mound and were not disappointed.  Jacobs, coming off a historic performance on Sunday, threw 5.1 innings of scoreless baseball to pick up his sixth win of the year.

Strong pitching dominated the first few innings, but the Lions were finally able to get on the board in the third.  After Taylor Overby (Nazareth, PA/Bethlehem Catholic) doubled with one out to spark the offense, John Hlavinka (Venetia, PA/Peters Township) came to the plate with a chance to give Behrend the lead.  On a bizarre play, Hlavinka reached on an error while Overby came around to score on another error to put the Lions up, 1-0.

With the score still 1-0 in favor of Behrend in the sixth, Alex Margraf (Erie, PA/McDowell) came up huge for the Lions.  Margraf ripped a two-run single with two outs, giving Behrend a couple crucial insurance runs.

Chad Zurat (Clearfield, PA/Clearfield) earned his fourth save of the season with 1.2 innings out of the pen.  Zurat struck out three of the eight batters he faced and gave up just one hit.

Jacobs, the recently announced D3baseball.com and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) National Pitcher of the Week, only allowed three hits and one walk to go with three strikeouts.

In game two, the two teams battled each other in a see-saw affair until La Roche took the lead for good in the sixth.

The Lions trailed 1-0 after the first, but put up a single run in the second.  Jordan Weinzierl (St. Marys, PA/St. Marys) drove in Matt Bittner (Lancaster, NY/St. Mary's) on a single to right field, tying the game at 1-1.

The Redhawks retook the lead in the third only to have Behrend answer again with two runs in their half of the inning.  Evan Bukowski (Washington, PA/Trinity) hit a two-run single up the middle and with three innings in the books, the Lions had their first lead of the game.

La Roche was not going quietly though.  The Redhawks tied the game in the fourth and plated three runs with two outs in the sixth to earn the split.

Weinzierl and Bittner both had two hits in the game.  Overby added two more hits in game two, capping great 3-for-4 day at the plate.