APRIL 30, 2010
KING'S BASEBALL RALLY FALLS SHORT IN 11-8 LOSS AT MANHATTANVILLE
PURCHASE, NY -- The King's College baseball team fell behind 8-1 after four innings and came up short in its attempt to rally as the Monarchs dropped an 11-8 decision to host Manhattanville College Friday in Purchase, NY in the first of an important three-game series. The teams will now play a doubleheader Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at King's Betzler Athletic Complex.
With the win, Manhattanville improved to 17-18-1 overall while King's slipped to 20-13. More important for Manhattanville is the fact that the victory enabled the team to draw even with King's in the battled for the third-seed in next week's Freedom Conference Tournament as both teams now sport identical 11-8 league records heading into Saturday's twin bill.
Despite the result, both teams qialified for the Freedom Conference playoffs as fellow contender Eastrern dropped a 10-5 decision to Misericordia and were officially eliminated. Eastern needed to sweep three games from Misericordia and have King's lose all three games to Manhattanville to qualify.
If King's win both games Saturday the Monarchs will be the third seed. If the teams split or Manhattanville wins both games, the Valiants would be seeded third and the Monarchs fourth, accoriding to the MAC tie-breaking criteria.
Saturday's games at King's can be followed on LiveStats at the following link:
http://www.sidearmstats.com/kings/baseball/index.htm
Manhattanville took a 4-0 first inning lead after back-to-back home runs by Kevin Murray and A.J. Traino. AFter the Valiants added a run in the second for a 5-0 lead, King's scored two in the third after an RBI single by Matt Unger and a run-scoring double from Brian Mikus.
After Manhattanville scored three more runs in the fourth inning to stretch the lead to 8-2, the teams traded one run in the fifth inning, then two more each in the sixth as the Valiants led 11-5.
King's pushed across a run in the eighth when Jeremy Bonser delivered a RBI single to bring King's to within 11-6. In the ninth, Chris Sweeney doubled before a single by Unger gave the Monarchs runners at second and third with no outs. Mikus then stroked a RBI single and Unger scored on a passed ball to cut the lead to 11-8. After a walk to Jeremy Bonser brought the game-tying run to the plate, Sean Rooney flied to right, moving Mikus to third.
Manhattanville, however, would hold on with a strikeout and an in infield ground out to end the game.
King's had 11 hits in the game, led by Unger who was 4-for-4 with two RBI. Sweeney finished 2-for-3 with three runs while Mikus was 2-for-5 with two RBI. Eric Matula took the pitching loss for King's, allowing eight earned runs on 11 hits in three innings.
Paul Blejec and Nick Parente were both 3-for-5 for Manhattanville while Murray was 2-for-3 with three RBI and Traino went 2-for-4 with two RBI. Joe Gallace finished 1-for-2 with three RBI.
