Box Score (Game 1) | Box Score (Game 2)

WEST POINT, N.Y. - Jackson Kramer recorded his second-straight three-hit game, and Lafayette scored in each of the final five innings to secure an 11-2 win over Army West Point in the opener of today's doubleheader.

The victory ensured a series win for the Leopards over the Black Knights for a second year in a row, though Army used a five-run eighth inning to pull away for a 9-3 win in the night cap to avoid a four-game sweep.

The Maroon and White, however, will still head home to College Hill with a 3-1 record in Patriot League play, placing them in a tie with Bucknell for first place in the conference standings. The Leopards (9-15, 3-1 PL) will host 3:30 p.m. midweek matchups against Penn (Tuesday) and Penn State (Wednesday) before welcoming Navy to town next weekend for a four-game league series.

GAME 1

Lafayette managed its second-consecutive errorless game in the opener, accomplishing that feat for the first time since the first two games of the season. Army, on the other hand, committed six miscues which led to eight unearned runs in the contest.

Half of those unearned tallies came in the top of the third inning. Kramer reached on a throwing error to load the bases with one out. Steven Cohen then drew a walk to push across the first run, and Dan Leckie plated two more with a double down the right field line. A sacrifice fly from John Selsor completed the four-run frame.

Starter John Cain delivered a shutdown inning once he got back on the mound, retiring the Black Knights in order to quickly bring the Maroon and White back to the plate, and they responded with three more runs to break the game open. Michael Coniglio and Andrew Landolfi advanced to second and third, respectively, on a wild pitch, and Kramer drove each of them in with an opposite field single to right. After a fielding error extended the inning, Campbell Lipe made it 7-0 with an RBI single of his own.

Cain kept the home side scoreless through the first five innings before Army ended the shutout with a pair of runs in the sixth. The sophomore left-hander still managed to complete the sixth, however, ending his line with five strikeouts and five hits allowed to earn his first victory of the season and register Lafayette's third quality start of the series.

The Leopards added four additional runs over the last three innings, aided by three Black Knight errors, with Landolfi and Kramer picking up RBIs. Kramer went 3-for-5 with three RBIs and two runs scored in the contest. Lipe and Tyler Hudson each collected two hits and Coniglio scored three times from the top of the lineup.

The nine-run margin of victory was Lafayette's largest of the season, while the Maroon and White reached double digits on the scoreboard for the second time in 2016.

GAME 2

After leading off the contest with a single, Coniglio registered his fourth steal in as many games to quickly move into scoring position. He was stranded, though, at third base, and Army pushed across a run off starter Ari Kaufman in each of the first two innings to grab a 2-0 lead.

Black Knight starter Daniel Burggraaf retired 10 Leopards in a row after Coniglio's base hit, but a fielding error ended that stretch with one out in the fourth. That miscue allowed Cohen to reach, and Leckie and Lipe followed with singles to load the bases. Burggraaf induced a strikeout for the second out, but Drew Aherne delivered a clutch two-run single up the middle to level up the score.

The tie did not last long, as Josh White hit a solo homer with one out in the bottom of the frame to allow Army to retake a 3-2 advantage. Coniglio had a chance to even things up again in the fifth, reaching on an infield and stealing yet another base to advance to second. He was thrown out at the plate, though, while trying to score on a single by Kramer.

Kaufman stepped up with scoreless frames in the fifth and sixth innings, fanning back-to-back hitters to strand runners on second and third in the fifth, to give Lafayette another quality start. Kaufman finished with six strikeouts over six innings of work, allowing 10 hits, one walk and three earned runs.

The Black Knights doubled their lead in the seventh on a two-out infield RBI single by Jacob Page. The Leopards loaded the bases with nobody out in the eighth, but could only manage one run when Kramer made it home on a 4-6-3 double play, and Army broke the game open in the bottom of the inning.

The key hit in that frame was a three-run triple by Jon Rosoff with one out, and the Black Knights tacked on two more runs on three-straight singles afterwards.

Army (10-17, 1-3 PL) closed the door in the ninth inning to snap a seven-game losing streak to the Maroon and White.

Notes:

Lafayette's three wins this weekend were their first in West Point since an 8-7 triumph on April 24, 2010, and this was the Leopards first road series win over Army since 2006.

Kramer finished the weekend series 7-for-15 from the plate (.467 BA), with a team-high five RBIs. Lipe added a .429 average, going 6-for-14 at the plate, while Coniglio hit .313 and went 5-for-5 on the base paths.