DAVIDSON, N.C. – Lafayette College Baseball handed Davidson its second loss of the season and earned its third win of the season on Friday, taking down the Wildcats 8-2 in game one of the three game weekend series.
Eight Leopards recorded a hit in the win, highlighted by senior
Colin Hartey and junior
Ethan Stern who each drove in two runs.
Starting pitcher junior
JP Woodward went six solid innings, striking out a season-high 12 of the 23 batters he faced, earning the win and improving to 2-1.
Freshman
Jacob Ciccone came in to finish out the game for the Leopards, striking out a career-high 6 of the 11 batters he faced over his three innings and earning his first career save.
Lafayette (3-5) got on the board first in the top of the third after freshman
Patrick Vandenbergh started off the inning with a walk. He then advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by freshman
Jack Amendola, to third on a wild pitch and then came home on another wild pitch to give the Leopards their first run of the game.
Johnson then drew a walk to put himself on first and then stole second. Stern singled to bring Johnson home and then senior
Trey Durrah singled to right field to bring Stern home to put the Leopards up 3-0.
Lafayette scored two more in the top of the fifth to bring to score to 5-0. Davidson (7-2) added one run in the bottom of the sixth and one run in the seventh to cut the Leopards lead down to three heading into the final two innings.
The Maroon and White tacked on three more in the top of the eighth. On first after coming in to pinch run for freshman
Zach Savage who walked to start off the inning, junior
Michael Landry advanced to second on a Vandenbergh sacrifice bunt single.
Later in the inning, with Vandenbergh on second and Landry on third, Johnson walked to load the bases for Hartey who singled down the right field line to score Vandenbergh and Landry. Stern then reached first on an error by the Wildcats third baseman, putting Hartey at third and sending Johnson home to make it 8-2.
Ciccone got the three Davidson batters in order in the bottom of the eighth to send the game into the ninth where both teams went out quickly to give the Leopards the game one victory.
Game two of the three game weekend series is set for 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
