RICHMOND, Va. –  The Lafayette baseball team's comeback bid in the middle-game of a three-game series at VCU came up short as the Leopards plated four runs in the sixth to take their first lead on Saturday afternoon, but fell 7-6 at The Diamond.
 
After falling behind early, Lafayette (3-8) responded with in the fourth when junior Trey Durrah doubled down the right field line to score sophomore Colin Hartey and classmate Bill Russo hit a sacrifice fly to score senior Spencer Rouse.
 
The Rams (10-3) answered in the home half of the fourth with another run to make it 4-2.
 
After a scoreless fifth, the Leopards erupted in the sixth for four runs when Rouse and Durrah opened the inning with back-to-back walks and sophomore Michael Landry moved them over with a sacrifice bunt.
 
Some VCU blunders, including an error and a wild pitch plated Rouse and Durrah. Russo came around to score on a senior Richard Villa groundout and Johnson doubled in the next at bat and scored on a sophomore Ethan Stern base hit to go up 6-4.
 
VCU chipped away with a run in the home half of the sixth and went ahead in the eighth, plating a pair.
 
Johnson was moved up to the lead-off spot and was 2-for-5 at the plate with a double and a run while Stern went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
 
Russo had a two-RBI day, going 2-for-3 and scoring a run. Junior Mark Anderson made the start and went four innings, allowing four hits and striking out two. He allowed two earned runs before senior Jon Faraci gave two strong innings of relief, allowing just the one run on two hits with two punchouts.
 
The Leopards will look to salvage the series in Sunday's finale, schedule for a 1 p.m. start.
 
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