March 10, 2013
PRINCESS ANNE, Md. - The Lafayette baseball team salvaged a split of its four-game weekend series at Maryland Eastern Shore with a 15-1 victory after losing 5-4 in Sunday's first contest. With the split Lafayette moves to 2-9 on the season, while UMES now stands at 3-13 overall.
Senior Michael Massa (1-2) delivered Lafayette's most impressive pitching performance to date, tossing a seven inning complete game and allowed just one run while scattering four hits, striking out two and walking four.
The Leopards racked up 15 hits, with Tyler Hudson, Campbell Lipe, Andrew Ruck and Andrew Santomauro each registering two each. Parker Hills led the team with three hits and three RBI in five at bats, including two in Lafayette's seven-run sixth inning in which Lafayette sent 10 hitters to the plate and took a commanding 14-0 lead at that point.
Lafayette jumped on UMES starter James Smith early and held a 5-0 lead after the first two frames. Smith ended up throwing four total innings, and struggled with control as he walked five Lafayette batters, hit three others and was charged with five runs, four earned, on three hits in a losing effort.
With Massa cruising through the first four innings and giving up only two hits, Lafayette plated two more runs to stretch its lead to 7-0 in the top of the fifth. A run-scoring double by Andrew Landolfi sent home Santomauro prior to Scott Kelleher following up with an RBI single to left to extend the cushion to seven runs.
Earlier in the afternoon, Lafayette's comeback bid was thwarted by UMES reliever Devin Repine, who came on to get the final two outs of the eighth inning with a run home and two men on base. Repine then pitched the ninth to earn the save and didn't allow a hit in his 1.2 innings of work.
Hills' stellar day began in the first game as the catcher went 2-for-4 with a two run triple in the second inning to put Lafayette ahead 2-0 and then brought home Lafayette's lone run in the eighth inning as the Leopards attempted to rally and made it a 5-4 game.
Holding a 3-1 advantage going into the bottom of the sixth, the Hawks got to Lafayette starter Connor Ortolf with four straight hits to start the inning. Three-hole hitter Byron Campbell began the rally with a single, Jeffrey Fleetwood added a base knock, Brandon Schott doubled home Campbell and Joshua James plated Fleetwood with a hit to right-center field. After James was caught stealing and a groundout, Connor Breslin singled home the third run to send UMES into the seventh with a 4-3 edge.
A two-out RBI single by Fleetwood off Lafayette lefty Ari Kaufman gave the Hawks the insurance run they needed before they held on for the 5-4 final. Ortolf (0-1) ended up taking the loss after giving up four runs on 11 base hits in six innings.
Lafayette returns to the diamond on Wednesday afternoon when it meets Temple in Philadelphia at 3 p.m.
