MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - After a disappointing 4-3, extra-inning loss filled with miscues, the 10th-ranked Millersville Marauders landed an early blow to No. 19 West Chester in the series finale, scoring four runs in the first inning and five in the second before pulling away for a 10-6 victory. The win clinched the series for Millersville and eliminated West Chester from the PSAC East title race.
Millersville, now 34-7 and 20-4 in the PSAC East, will take no fewer than a two-game lead into the final series of the regular season next week against East Stroudsburg. Millersville handed West Chester its first home losses of the season on Friday, and then scored 10 runs for the third time in the last five games to put the series away. Millersville has now won each of the first six PSAC East series.
"(Winning the series) is enormous," said Millersville head coach
Jon Shehan. "West Chester is a good team, ranked high in the region. They are going to come out and swing the bats. That's the best offensive team we've seen yet. They didn't have any outs in the lineup. I give them a lot of credit. That was an enormous weekend for us, especially to go into their place, where they were undefeated and take two, that was huge."
Millersville piled up 31 runs in the series, slowed only by West Chester's ace Kyle Lazer in Friday's opener. Otherwise, Millersville produced 10 or more hits in three of four games, including 12 in Saturday's finale.
Amani Jones went 3 for 4 with two RBIs,
Matthew Williams and
Jeff Sabater both had two hits.
Troy Chamberlin reached base three times with two hit-by-pitches and an RBI single.
Bren Taylor singled in Millersville's first run of the game, a hit that was the 306th of his career, tying him with Chas McCormick for the most hits in PSAC history. It started the wave of offense, as
Sam Morris and Jones followed with RBI knocks, and after West Chester scored twice in the top of the second inning, the Marauders answered with five more in the bottom, including a double from Jones.
"Enormous," said Shehan of the early offense in the finale. "This group has done that. We get knocked down a little bit, and the energy level picks right back up. They are consistently loud and high intensity. They came back out and threw a punch; it was great."
Millersville scored just once more the rest of the way, and West Chester chipped away with two runs in the fifth and two in the sixth. Starter
Garet Blankenbiller (6-1) ran into trouble in the fifth, but with bases loaded,
Gavin Lill, who had two saves on Friday, struck out Avery Spencer to end the threat. Lill was tagged for two runs in the sixth before
Evan Rishell entered, got two fly outs to center, and then struck out the final three batters of the game for his fifth save of the season.
"Lill came in with the big strikeout with bases loaded, and that was huge," said Shehan. "I know he didn't finish the game like he wanted to, but he had three appearances this weekend and ran out of gas. I was really happy with the way Blankenbiller threw tonight. He held them in check. Rishell did a great job tonight, too."
Two unearned runs were the difference in Saturday's opener. A pair of Millersville throwing errors led directly to West Chester runs. With Millersville trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth, Morris laced a two-out, two-run single to left. Millersville, however, went 1-2-3 in the seventh, and in extra innings, Anthony Boccio doubled home Sean Szestowicky to get West Chester a one-run lead. The first two Marauders of the bottom of the eighth reached base, but a strikeout and double-play ended the game.
Sabater went 2 for 3 with a walk, two runs and two steals in the game.
Alex Kuehn (5-1) was the hard-luck loser, working 7 1/3 and allowing four runs, only two of which were earned, and one was an inherited runner in the eighth.
East Stroudsburg, sitting at 17-5 in the PSAC East, concludes its series with Kutztown on Sunday. That will set the stage for the final series that begins Thursday morning in Allentown at Coca-Cola Ballpark, the home of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Millersville hosts an afternoon-night doubleheader on Friday. Millersville hosts the entire PSAC Tournament from May 7-10 and are expected to contend for one of the Atlantic Region's top seeds, and could very well host an NCAA Regional. The opportunity for a lengthy homestand hinges on the series against East Stroudsburg.
"Another big series," said Shehan. "I told the kids coming into this weekend that every game going forward is going to be a playoff atmosphere. If we take care of business, we have the chance to play almost every game at home from here on out, depending on the regional rankings. We have that chance if we take care of business this coming weekend."
