MAY 1, 2010
KING'S BASEBALL SPLITS WITH MANHATTANVILLE, SETTLE FOR 4TH SEED IN CONFERENCE PLAYOFFS
(Fravel Connects on 100th Career Base Hit in Nightcap)
WILKES-BARRE – The King's College baseball team settled for a doubleheader split in its Freedom Conference regular-season finale against visiting Manhattanville College on Saturday at Lipo Field. King's won the first game 2-1 while dropping the nightcap by a 10-7 count
The split game Manhattanville a 2-1 season-series win, thus relegating the Monarchs to the fourth seed in next week's Freedom Conference Tournament.
King's will travel to face top-seeded DeSales in the tournament opener Wednesday at a time to be announced, while third-seeded Manhattanville will travel to meet second-seeded FDU-Florham.
In Saturday's opener, the Monarchs received a strong pitching performance from Tommy Rozelle (5-3) who pitched six innings, allowing one unearned runs on three hits while striking out five batters. Dan Jenkins pitched the final inning, retiring all three batters to get the save.
Offensively, King's took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Joey Troxell and Rob Fravel led off the game with back-to-back singles. Troxell would later score from third on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Matt Unger. King's added a run in the fourth inning when Brian Mikus singled and eventually scored from third when Sean Rooney grounded into a double play.
Manhattanville scored its lone run in the sixth when Paul Blejec reached base on an error and scored on a double by Chris Nardozzi.
In the second game, Manhattanville jumped on King's freshman hurler Bobby Peron for four runs in the first inning and two more in the second to build a 6-0 lead.
King's scored a run in the third when Matt Pritchard singled and scored from third on a base hit by Rob Fravel. After Manhattanville added two runs in each of the fifth and sixth innings to build a 10-1 advantage, the Monarchs countered with four runs in the bottom of the sixth. Fravel led off the inning with a single and scored from third when Jeremy Bonser came through with a sacrifice fly. Eric Matula added a two-run double while Pritchard contributed a RBI single to cut the score to 10-5.
In the seventh, the Monarchs attempted to rally after Pat Harsch led off with a single. Fravel brought Harsch home from second base when he tallied his 100th career base hit. Chris Sweeney then doubled to advance Fravel to third base. Unger lofted a sacrifice fly to center to plate Fravel. But with two outs, Manhattanville registered the final out to end the game.
Fravel was 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBI while Pritchard went 2-for-3 with one run and a RBI. Matula was 1-for-3 with two RBI.
King's will host Penn State Wilkes-Barre Sunday in a 12:00 noon doubleheader in the Betzler Athletic Complex.
