WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Lafayette baseball team fell to Army in game three, 7-3, of the Patriot League Tournament Semifinal series on Sunday closing out its 2021 season. 
 
The Maroon and White were led by junior Dylan Minghini who went 2-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs. Senior Colin Hartey went 1-for-3 with a solo home run and sophomore Seif Ingram went 2-for-4 with a stolen base.
 
Starting pitcher junior Jake Bloss went 5.2 innings, throwing three scoreless innings and striking out six. Sophomore Jacob Ciccone came in for 2.1 innings of relief, striking out two.
 
Army (26-22, 14-10 PL) jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first.
 
Lafayette (14-17 , 12-12 PL) cut the Black Knights lead in half in the top of the second. Sophomore Pete Ciuffreda started off the inning with a walk, and then stole second to put himself in scoring position for Minghini.
 
Minghini singled to right center to bring Ciuffreda home and pull the Leopards within one of the Black Knights, but Army added two more runs in the bottom of the inning to put themselves up by three.
 
The Leopards added a run in the top of the sixth after a triple by Minghini brought home Stern, who had gotten on base after reaching on a throwing error by the Black Knights to once again cut Army's lead in half.
 
Army then broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth with a three-run home run to push the lead out to five.  
 
Hartey tried to get a late inning rally going for the Leopards in the seventh, hitting a solo shot to bring the score to 7-4. But the Leopards were unable to rally as Army pitched a scoreless final two innings, taking the game three victory to advance to the Patriot League Tournament Championship series.
 
With the loss, the Leopards closed out their 2021 spring season with a 14-17 overall record and a 12-13 mark in Patriot League action.