MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - It was a tale of two games Monday at Cooper Park. Millersville forced a deciding third game in the PSAC Semifinal series with a 12-2 win over Bloomsburg, but the Huskies advanced to the PSAC Championship series by blanking the Marauders 13-0 in seven innings.
Both games ended via 10-run rule. After pounding out 14 hits in Monday's first game, Millersville mustered just four against Bloomsburg's Michael Standen (3-2), who went the distance and struck out 10. It was Standen's first outing longer than six innings and a season-high in strikeouts.
Starting pitching proved key in both games Monday. Blanden stifled the Marauders in game three of the series, and Jeff Taylor gave the Marauders seven shutout innings in game two to extend the series. Millersville played the series without injured starters Alex Mykut and Paul Wilson, and in the two losses, Millersville's pitchers issued a combined 25 walks, including a season-high 13 in Monday's finale. Bloomsburg drew four bases-loaded walks in the game, and of the 13 runs that scored, nine reached base via walk.
In his final games at Cooper Park, Eric Callahan totaled five hits, including a 4-for-5, two-home run performance in Millersville's win.
Bloomsburg, which won the PSAC Championship in 2019, now has a chance to defend its title. The Huskies play Seton Hill in a best of three series starting Saturday, May 21. Millersville, now with a 28-12 record, was one of the team's in consideration for the NCAA Atlantic Regional and finds out its fate during the NCAA selection show on Sunday, May 23 at 10 p.m.
MILLERSVILLE 12, BLOOMSBURG 2
• Taylor went seven innings for the fifth time in his last seven starts and won his ninth consecutive start. After giving up a single in the bottom of the first, he retired 11 batters in a row, and the Huskies never threatened until the bottom of the fifth when Millersville already held a 6-0 lead. A single and two two-out walks loaded the bases, but Taylor got out of the jam with a fly out to center. Taylor stranded two more runners in the seventh before handing the ball to
Andrew Mayhew in the eighth. Taylor 2-0 in the PSAC Tournament, striking out 18 and allowing three earned runs over 14 innings.
• An error, hit batsman and passed ball set Millersville up an RBI ground out from
Luke Trainer, and a another error pushed Millersville's second run home. In the third inning, Callahan hit his first of two homers,
Tyler Wright singled in a run in the fourth, and Millersville tacked on two more in the fifth on an RBI single from Callahan and a
Jimmy Losh sacrifice fly. In the sixth, Trainer doubled in a run, and Callahan singled in another. The Marauders pushed four more across in the eighth to end the game early.
• Callahan drove in five runs. Trainer went 2-for-5 with two RBIs and three runs scored.
BLOOMSBURG 13, MILLERSVILLE 0
• After Millersville struck early in Monday's first game, Bloomsburg scored four on just one hit in the first. Three walks and a hit batsman was followed by a Gianni Sinatore bases-clearing double.
• Millersville managed just one single through the first five innings. Two of Millersville's four hits came in the bottom of the seventh, and all four hits were singles.
• Standen needed just 94 pitches to work through his seven innings in which he did not issue a walk. Millersville utilized six pitchers, who combined to throw 193 pitches.
NOTES
• Taylor's 10th win ties him for the seventh-most in a single season in Millersville history and is two wins behind the record of 12 which was set five times.
• If Millersville is selected to the NCAA Atlantic Regional, it will be its eighth consecutive trip.
