MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - The Millersville University baseball team took to its home field in an NCAA Atlantic Regional for the first time ever on Friday. The Marauders received strong starts from a pair of record-setting senior pitchers in Eli Nabholz and Cordell Shannon, but a pair of all-star pitchers on the other side of the field held the Marauders to just one total run over 18 innings. Bloomsburg's Ashton Raines tossed a complete game for a 2-1 win in game one, and Mercyhurst's Matthew Minnick eliminated the Marauders by a 2-0 score in game two. 

No. 17 Millersville (38-16) entered the Atlantic Regional as the No. 1 seed and led the PSAC in hitting and runs scored in the regular season, but for the third time in five postseason games and for the fourth time in its last six games, it failed to score more than one run. Millersville totaled just 10 hits and two walks in Friday's two losses, and that one run came on a Cole Friese solo home run in the third inning of game one. 

No. 19 Mercyhurst (31-13), which beat No. 18 Bloomsburg (35-15) in an 18-inning affair on Thursday, enters Saturday needing one win over Bloomsburg to advance to the NCAA Super Regional. Bloomsburg's win in game one was its first NCAA Tournament win since 1995. Friday marked the Marauders' seventh-consecutive regional tournament.

GAME 1 RECAP (BLOOMSBURG 2, MILLERSVILLE 1)
• Friese's 12th home run of the year--hit with one out in the third--gave Millersville a 1-0 lead that stood until the sixth. Nabholz (9-2) issued a one-out walk to Ryan Shiffer, and then with two outs, Kyle OFier pulled a pitch down the right field line for an RBI double. 
• A nearly identical scene played out in the seventh when Jake Reed drew a one-out walk, and Andrew Holmes doubled into the right-center field gap with two outs. 
• That was all the support that Raines--an All-PSAC East First Team selection--needed. From the fourth through the ninth, Raines sat down 18 Marauders in a row and he did not give up a hit after Friese's home run. Raines allowed three hits, did not walk a batter and struck out four. 
• It was another hard-luck postseason loss for Nabholz, who won 24 games in his Marauder career but finished 0-2 in seven postseason starts. The two-time PSAC East Pitcher of the Year gave up two runs on three hits, three walks and two hit batsmen while striking out eight over seven innings. In his seven career postseason starts, Nabholz allowed just 11 runs over 45 1/3 innings (2.18 ERA). 
• Andrew Mayhew tossed two shutout innings of relief. 

GAME 2 RECAP (MERCYHURST 2, MILLERSVILLE 1)
• After scoring one run in its first game, Millersville faced a stiff challenge from Minnick, the PSAC West Pitcher of the Year, one hour later. Millersville put at least one runner on base in each inning from the second through the seventh and put the tying run on base in the ninth but never cracked Minnick or reliever Jared Kapturasky, who earned this third save of the season with two innings of work. 
• Luke Trainer and Dominic Hardaway both singled in the second, but both were stranded. Ben Snyder led off the fourth with a single down the left field line but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double. In the sixth, Friese singled with a well-placed bunt down the first base line. Kaylor Kulina followed with a single, and with one out, Snyder was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Minnick, however, got Luke Trainer to bounce into a 4-6-3 double play, ending the bases-loaded jam. 
• While Millersville couldn't capitalize on its scoring opportunity, Mercyhurst did in the bottom of the inning. The first batter of the inning was hit by a pitch and moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt. No. 9 hitter Domenic DeRenzo broke the scoreless tie with a double, and Matthew Gibson singled home DeRenzo with his lone hit of the game. 
• Millersville's last chance at a rally came in the ninth when Trainer was hit by a pitch with one out. With two outs, Hardaway singled to center, bringing the tying run to the plate. Kapturasky, however, ended the game with a pop up to the first baseman. 
• Shannon gave up only the two runs on three hits and struck out six over six innings. He entered his senior season with a 6-0 career postseason record but took losses in both of his 2019 postseason starts. He finished the season 9-4 but received a grand total of three runs of support in three of his last four outings. 
• Hardaway totaled two of Millersville's seven hits. Kulina singled and walked once. 
• Tyler Yankosky and Paul Wilson both threw scoreless innings in relief. 

WHAT COACH JON SHEHAN HAD TO SAY
• "The team was loose, their minds were right, we just didn't swing it. Bottom line. There were three of four pitches that made the difference in both games and they didn't go our way. Whether its balls and strikes, hit by pitches, us not moving runners over when we need to, everything bounced the opposite direction today."
• "It was a tough day of baseball all the way around. We had to face two aces right off the bat and things have to go right. It's going to come down to three of fourth pitches. It did and it didn't go our way."
• "To get going in the sixth, we finally get a bunt down. It was the first ball we bunted fair in the postseason that I can remember. That was our go-to against good arms early in the year. We slashed with Kaylor to get going. From that point forward we didn't execute."
• "You sit for a week and have to go in and face an ace. You have to take care of business. It's hard to do. It's hard to get your offense up and running, especially when you don't execute."
• "At the end of the day, the process works here. Our coaching staff is not complacent. We are not going away. We are going to continue to work hard, find good players and good make-up kids. I am really looking forward to the '19 class. We have a good core coming back and a lot of good arms that didn't really get an opportunity this year."

NOTES
• Friday was the final game for eight Marauder seniors. Snyder, Shannon and Mike Mock graduate as members of four NCAA Atlantic Regional qualifying teams, a NCAA runner-up team and two PSAC East title winning teams. 
• Millersville has lost the opening game of the regional in four of the last five seasons and has not scored more than one run in any of those games. 
• Mercyhurst has won two consecutive regional games over Millersville (2017 and 2019) after Millersville won the first six regional games between the teams. 
• Shannon finished his Marauder career ranked second all-time in wins with a 31-11 record. He set the career record with 308 2/3 innings pitched. Shannon and Nabholz enter the record books tied for in career strikeouts with 265 each. Nabholz ranks fifth in career wins and fourth in innings pitched. Snyder capped his Marauder career ranked second in career doubles (60), sixth in hits (213), seventh in runs (154), fourth in RBIs (154), fourth in walks (103) and seventh in home runs (20). 
• Friese and Hardaway's 12 home runs tied for the fourth-most in a season. Friese's 66 runs tied a school record. 

SHEHAN ON THE SENIORS
• "They went to four-straight regionals, played on the winningest team in conference history and some of them were key contributors to that team. We had two guys battling for the strikeout record. That group is going to be tough to replace."