GREENVILLE, Pa. – The Thiel College baseball team split a Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) doubleheader against Saint Vincent College on Tuesday. Thiel won game one 3-1 and dropped the second game 10-5.
Early in game one both the Tomcats and Bearcats struggled to find any offense as neither team scored a run in the first four innings.
In the fifth
Andrew Giesey (Penn, Pa./Penn Trafford) doubled to left center and then advanced on a wild pitched to third.
Jake Marino (Pittsfield, Pa./Youngsville) then singled up the middle to score Giesey that gave the Tomcats a 1-0 advantage after four.
Saint Vincent had no answer in the top of the sixth as Tomcats scored two more runs in the bottom of the sixth as
Nick Grice (McKeesport, Pa./McKeesport) reached on a throwing error by the shortstop before
Daniel Patrice (Munich, Germany/EST) doubled down the left field line to score Grice. Then with one out
Bryan Mitchell (Cleveland, Ohio/Padua Franciscan) tripled to right field to score Patrice to make it 3-0.
The Bearcats threatened a comeback in the seventh as Greg Martin homered to right center field to pull them within 2 runs. With two outs, T.J. Kuny reached on a fielding error by Patrice, then Mike Hilderbrand singled down the right field line to advance Kuny to third.
With the winning run at the plate Starter
Kevin Forrester (Canonsburg, Pa./Canon-McMillan) got Patrick McElfish to ground out to end game one.
Forrester pitched a complete game and allowed one earned run on five hits with six strikeouts. He picked up his fourth win of the season.
Starter Dave Culeton took the loss as he went 5.1 innings and allowed two earned runs.
Game two saw immediate offense as the Bearcats opened the game in the first with two runs off of a single by Martin to score Tanner Yard and a McElfish single to center to score Chris Winkler.
The Tomcats answered in the bottom of the inning as
Filippo Costanzo (Brunswick, Ohio/Brunswick) hit a two-run homerun of the season to left field that made it tied 2-2 after one.
The third saw Thiel and Saint Vincent trade runs as the game remained tied at 3-3 after three.
Saint Vincent took control of the game in the fifth as the Bearcats put up five runs on five hits to make it 8-3. Brennan Hoffer added a two run double to left center in the sixth give the Bearcats 10 runs.
Thiel tried to mount a comeback in the seventh with two outs as Giesey singled to center to score Mitchell and pulled the Tomcats within six.
Griffin Curry (Aliquippa, Pa./Hopewell) was the fifth run of the game as he advanced home on a stolen base by Giesey. But that was the last of the Tomcat offense as they dropped game two by a final score of 10-5.
Thiel (17-10, 9-5 PAC) will return to action Wednesday when they take on the Allegheny College Gators at Robertson Field. The non-conference nine-inning game is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
