April 14, 2015
EASTON, Pa. - Lafayette and Rutgers battled to a 3-3 tie on Tuesday in a non-conference baseball game that was called due to darkness after 12 innings at Kamine Stadium.
The tie was just the second in head coach Joe Kinney's 16-year career, the fifth all-time at Kamine Stadium/Metzgar Fields, and the 34th in school history.
Lafayette (7-18-1) used a season-high eight pitchers throughout the course of the game, and they combined to hold Rutgers (11-23-1) to just nine hits and three walks over the Leopards' second 12-inning contest in the past three days. It was Lafayette's third extra-inning game over their last five played.
Though held to just three runs, the Lafayette offense continued to impress as it recorded 14 hits to reach double digits for the third time in the last four games and for the seventh time in 11 April games. The Leopards tallied at least one hit in each of the first 10 innings.
Rutgers took a 1-0 lead in their first at-bat of the game when Tom Marcinczyk stroked his team-leading fifth home run over the right-field fence.
The Leopards answered back in the second when Brett Thompson singled home Tim Lazor from second. Lazor had reached on a fielder's choice and moved up on a walk drawn by Jackson Kramer.
Lafayette claimed a brief 2-1 lead in the fifth when Steven Cohen scored on a base hit from Toby Schwartz. Cohen had singled himself before moving to second on a Michael Coniglio single and to third on a fielder's choice from Alex Woinski.
The advantage was short-lived, as Rutgers' Christian Campbell doubled to lead off the sixth before moving to third on a fly out by Kyle Walker and racing home on a ground out by Milo Freeman.
The Leopards added another run in the seventh when Woinski singled home Cohen, who had doubled, but the Scarlet Knights replied in the eighth when Walker plated Vinny Zarillo on an RBI base hit of his own.
The next four-and-a-half innings featured just three total hits -- all by the Leopards -- before the head coaches and umpires agreed to end the game with the cloudy skies darkening.
Next up, the Leopards will head to Bucknell for an important pair of doubleheaders that are scheduled to begin at noon on both Saturday and Sunday. Lafayette currently has a one-game lead on Bucknell for the fourth spot in the Patriot League playoffs.
