ALTOONA SWEEPS FIRST ROUND, AS MOUNT ALOYSIUS AND ALFRED STATE SPLIT TO FORCE A GAME THREE

#3 Penn State Altoona baseball used a pair of dramatic victories on Saturday afternoon at Stewart Athletic Field to win this weekend's Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Tournament first round, best-of-three series over #6 Pitt-Greensburg. Right down the road in Cresson, PA, #5 Alfred State College and #4 Mount Aloysius College split a doubleheader on Saturday in a first round AMCC tournament series. The Pioneers took the opener 5-1 and the Mounties won a wild 14-13 game to force a deciding game three. 

In game one, Penn State Altoona (26-14) overcame a late, one-run deficit by scoring two runs in the bottom of the sixth to leap ahead and win 4-3. In game two, the Lions came back to win 8-7 in extra innings, getting a walk-off, two-out RBI single from George Stiuso. The Lions will start the championship round with a matchup against No. 2 seed Penn State Behrend on Thursday, May 9 at 1:00pm.

The Pioneers' Andrew Santobuono continued his impressive first collegiate season with a complete game victory in the opener. He allowed just one run on eight hits. He struck out six and didn't walk a batter.

The night cap proved that both teams were in it to win it and the Mounties were not ready for their season to end quite yet. A wild, high-scoring back-and-forth game had the final score set in the 8th inning when Mount Aloysius' Doug Smith hit a two-out double to center to give the Mounties back the lead 14-13.

The deciding game three of the series will take place on Sunday with a scheduled 11am first pitch. The winner of the series will take on #1 seed La Roche University on Thursday as the AMCC Final Four starts.