MILLERSVILLE, Pa. – A second consecutive extra-inning affair doomed the Millersville University baseball team in game three of the weekend series versus Mansfield, with the Mountaineers dropping down a suicide squeeze to win it in nine innings, 2-1.
 
The Marauders rebounded in game four of the series with a 7-3 win on a very blustery afternoon, with the wind blowing in from center field and denying most fly balls from leaving the ballpark. The victory clinched another PSAC East series win, three games to one, a feat which the Marauders have accomplished in every conference series but one (versus Shepherd, where the Rams took two of three games.)
 
Entering the final week of the regular season the Ville remains in first place in the PSAC East standings with a 19-8 conference record (22-10 overall), which puts them a game ahead of second-place West Chester in the loss column and two games up in the win column.
 
In game one of the day, Millersville sophomore starting pitcher Ben Wilchacky tossed a strong four-and-one-third innings, striking out three while allowing just one unearned run. Kris Pirozzi came on in relief and equaled his longest outing of the season with four innings of his own, striking out five. Mansfield's Eric Gustofson outdueled both of them with an eight-inning effort (129 pitches), allowing one run, striking out seven, and scattering four hits.
 
Millersville freshman Conor Cook gutted it out in game two on Sunday to win his third consecutive start, going four-and-two-thirds innings, allowing three earned runs, and tallying four strikeouts. His consecutive scoreless inning streak, however, ended at 16.
 
Offensively, runs were at a premium because of the windy conditions. The bottom of the lineup produced in game two, with Nick Mancuso (3-4, two runs scored, two doubles) and Tyler Wright (2-3, two RBIs, one run scored) helping to build the Marauders' lead. Bren Taylor continued to prove why he is among the league leaders in most offensive categories and also contributed with two RBIs in the second game of the day.
 
GAME ONE (MANSFIELD 2, MILLERSVILLE 1 (NINE INNINGS)
• With the wind blowing in towards home plate at Cooper Park, extra base hits extremely difficult to come by. The Marauders manufactured a run in the top of the second inning as the away team on the scoreboard thanks to a Cole Friese leadoff double followed by an Eric Callahan bunt single to the right side of the infield. A pickoff attempt from Gustofson caught Callahan in a rundown but heads-up baserunning from Friese got the run home as he sprinted in while the tag was being applied to Callahan.
• Mansfield evened up the score in the bottom of the fourth inning, as Zach Spray led off the frame by reaching base on a throwing error by Callahan. A Joe Tummino single and a Jake Haas groundout advanced Spray to third base, and he came home to tie the game on a sacrifice fly from Tony Brown to center field.
• Kris Pirozzi relieved starter Ben Wilchacky in the bottom of the fifth inning with two men on and one out but struck out the first two batters he faced to end the threat. No more runs crossed the plate for either team until the bottom of the ninth inning, when Mansfield's Ben Osborne roped a one-out single up the middle that chased Pirozzi from the game. Reliever Aidan Welch, who pitched so effectively on Saturday, walked Josh Farina and then issued an intentional walk to slugger Tyler Melko to load the bases. A suicide squeeze bunt play down the third base side executed by Assaf Lowengart brought home the game-winning run and gave Mansfield the victory.

GAME TWO (MILLERSVILLE 7, MANSFIELD 3)
• Knowing that manufacturing runs might be the key to victory, Millersville finally put together a big inning in the top of the third. Nick Mancuso stroked a leadoff single through the right side and Tyler Wright joined him on the basepaths after a bunt single. A wild pitch and a Wright stolen base advanced both runners, and Mancuso came home on a Jimmy Losh RBI groundout to make it a 1-0 Marauder lead. Bren Taylor followed that up with an RBI single up the middle to plate Wright, and the inning just got worse for Mansfield starter Colby Shimmell. A hit batter (Luke Trainer), a passed ball, and two wild pitches allowed Taylor and Trainer to score to push the lead to four runs.
• Mansfield fought back in the bottom half of the inning, with a Ben Osborne sacrifice fly and a mammoth home run that cut through the wind and carried over the fence in right center from Tyler Melko, a two-run blast and his eleventh of the season that brought the Mounties within a run, 4-3.
• Millersville added an insurance run in the top of the fourth, when Mancuso doubled and Pete Vaccaro hustled from first to third. Wright again delivered in the clutch, put the bat on the ball, and earned an RBI after grounding to short and giving Mancuso the time to score for a two-run cushion, 5-3. The advantage increased even more in the sixth, when another Mancuso double and Wright single scored Mark Miller. The small ball continued with a Bren Taylor fielder's choice RBI to make it 7-3.
• Christian Wingard and Wyatt Tyson baffled the Mansfield lineup after that. Wingard threw one-and-a-third scoreless innings with three strikeouts, while Tyson completed a 1-2-3 seventh inning to clinch the victory.

REACTION FROM HEAD COACH JON SHEHAN
•On today's performance: "I give Mansfield a lot of credit. That's the best Mansfield team we've seen in a long time. They competed to the end, and especially for a team that's sort of out of the standings, they came out and did a great job all weekend. I thought we pitched great today. In game one we needed a two-out base hit and we didn't get it. We hit some balls really hard today but it took us until the third inning of game two until we adjusted offensively and started playing some small ball. That's what it took, and the guys did a great job executing."
•On the bullpen's effort: "It was good to see the bullpen come out and be sharp. The last couple of weeks they've been good in the first day of the weekend but if we asked them to do more it was like they ran out of gas. (Ben) Wilchacky probably had his best outing of the year, (Kris) Pirozzi probably had his best outing of the year, and all those guys competed today."
•On what needs to improve: "We've got to bunt better on offense for sure. We made some physical mistakes defensively on bunts as well but we'll get better there. The guys got confident in their situations and their ability to find a way to score runs—even on a day where they were questioning whether they could score runs in our own ballpark when the wind blows in. The answer was "yes." We can score runs in a lot of different ways and we just needed that reminder."

NOTES
• Tyler Wright's three hits combined on the day raised his batting average to .370, good for second-highest on the team behind Bren Taylor (.423). His on-base percentage of .479 is also second-best behind Taylor's .519.
• The game one victory for Mansfield snapped a seven-game Millersville win streak in the season series between the teams. With the game two victory, Millersville has still won 11 of the last 14 meetings.
 
UP NEXT
• A non-conference contest with Chestnut Hill is on the schedule for Tuesday, May 4. The two teams met on Friday, March 12 in the Marauders' third game of the season, with the Ville winning 13-1. Tuesday's first pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m.