LA ROCHE BASEBALL ADVANCES TO NINTH STRAIGHT AMCC CHAMPIONSHIP
The La Roche University baseball team swept Alfred State College at home in the conference semifinal Friday afternoon to advance to their ninth straight AMCC championship.
The La Roche University baseball team swept Alfred State College at home in the conference semifinal Friday afternoon to advance to their ninth straight AMCC championship. The Redhawks beat the Pioneers 14-1 in game one but had to fight back in game two. After trailing 5-2 in the top of the sixth, LRU scored six runs in the final three innings, capped off by a Dylan Urban walk-off sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth to take game two, 8-7.
#1 seed La Roche will host #2 seed Penn St. Behrend for the best-of-three championship series on Wednesday, May 19th and Thursday, May 20th if necessary.
Game One - La Roche 14, Alfred St. 1
The Redhawks scored 12 of their 14 runs in the second, third and sixth innings. Jake Seymour notched his sixth complete game and improved to 7-0 on the season. In 7.0 innings pitched, Seymour had a career-high 11 strikeouts, two walks and gave up just two hits and one earned run. Ryan Lynn went 3-for-5 with a career-high six RBIs and two runs scored. Lynn notched his third homer of the year in the bottom of the third with a three run blast over the high left field fence. Austin Hoffman went 2-for-4 with two doubles, two RBIs and a team-high three runs scored. Jay Novak went 2-for-3 with a double, three RBIs and scored a run. Ben Dottle went 2-for-3 with a double, an RBI and scored a run.
Game Two - La Roche 8, Alfred St. 7
After a tough game one loss, the Pioneers came ready to play in game two. LRU went up 1-0 in the bottom of the first off two doubles from Austin Hoffman and Jason Swope. Then Alfred state scored three runs over the next two innings to take a 3-1 lead. Nathan Stutz made it a one run came on an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth. After a scoreless fifth inning, ASC would score two more runs in the sixth and seventh off singles to go up 5-2, their largest lead of the day. La Roche got back on track in the bottom of the seventh. With the bases loaded, Jason Swope lined one into right field to score Stutz. The next batter, Jay Novak, then reached on an error by the third basemen and two more runs scored to tie the game, 5-5. The Redhawks would then go up 7-5 in the bottom of the eighth when Austin Hoffman singled into center field to score Dottle and Mason Brooks. The Pioneers refused to go away and scored two more runs in the top of ninth to even the score 7-7. Then in the bottom of the ninth with no outs and runners on third and second, Dylan Urban hit a walk-off sacrifice fly into right field to lift La Roche to an 8-7 victory. On the mound, Mike Nuzzo came in for relief in the seventh and was credited with the win. Nuzzo is now 3-0 on the season.