POMONA, N.Y. – In a marathon day of baseball action at Clover Stadium, the Manhattan Jaspers baseball team split a doubleheader with the Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers late Sunday afternoon, dropping the opener 9-7, before bouncing back to claim a 5-2 victory in the finale.
"I admire the kids, commitment and perseverance in today's weather. It was a very chilly day to play 18," said head coach Dave Miller. "I think when playing so many young freshmen and sophomores the biggest thing you need to be with these student athletes is patient. We are not playing complete games And we are having mental lapses every couple of innings that cost us runs and right now games. It was great to get a split today and get our first win in the MAAC."
The split breaks a three-game losing streak for the Jaspers and marks their first home success of the season. Manhattan improves their overall record to 7-15 and 1-2 opening MAAC conference play, while Mount St. Mary's wraps up the weekend 5-15-1 and 2-1, respectively.
Game One
After five scoreless innings, both teams managed to break through the tough-tossing mound. Back-to-back hits and a long sacrifice fly pushed the Mountaineers first run across. A double from Scott Seeker put runners on second and third and two-run single dropped into center field gave Mount St. Mary's the 3-0 edge.
Manhattan followed suit turning a pair of hits and an error into two runs to cut the lead, 3-2. However, the errors carried over into the seventh inning, this time by the Green and White, and the fundamental breakdown led to an 8-2 edge in favor of the Mountaineers.
Daniel Perez, Frankie Marinelli, and Logan Pfannenbecker attacked with three base hits, allowing Perez to score and a ground out RBI from Drew Wyers pushed Marinelli home.
Down 8-4 in the bottom of the eighth, it was the Mountaineers who unraveled in the field and recorded a pair of errors. With two outs, the Jaspers mounted a rally for three runs to cut the lead, 8-7. Marinelli, representing the tying run, was intentionally walked after a pitching change, but a quick flyout in the next at-bat shut down the comeback.
The Mountaineers added their final run in the top of the ninth and closed out the game with relief pitcher Maximus McCrary facing just four Jaspers to put the game away.
Noah Mattera (3-2) was saddled with the loss after pitching five skillful innings, giving up just two runs on six hits, while walking three batters and recording five strikeouts.
Pfannenbecker and Wyers, along with Chase Swain and Dylan Mayer each recorded a pair of hits to lead Manhattan at the plate.
Game Two
The Jaspers came ready for retaliation in game two, putting an early three runs across in the first. Pfannenbecker roped a single to left and advanced to third after the Mountaineer mound issued back-to-back walks to Wyers and Vincent Davis. An RBI single from Swain backed by a sacrifice fly and an infield error drove in the trio.
From there, the bullpen took over, holding the Mountaineers to a mere two hits through nine innings. Garret Garbinski led off with an impressive 3.2 innings of work, striking out four of 16 batters faced and allowing one run.
Michael Staiano (3-0) tossed 4.1 lethal innings of relief and was credited with the win after holding the Mountaineers scoreless and hit-less and snagging five strikeouts while on the mound. Trey Packen closed out the final frame and recorded a strikeout.
Manhattan tacked on its final two runs with RBIs from Swain and Davis in the bottom of the seventh.
Evan Smith scored the Mountaineers two runs, a solo home run in the third and pushing across on a passed ball in the ninth.
Following tonight's game, Manhattan will take to the road for a midweek bout at Columbia on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. before continuing MAAC play at Canisius on Thursday. First pitch against the Golden Griffins is set for noon, followed by a 3 p.m. start Friday and a noon start to close out the series on Saturday.
"Mount St Mary's has a deep lineup of veteran hitters that compete at bat Noah Mattera and Garret Garbinski both gave quality starts and got great relief effort from Michael Staiano and Jack Mahoney, as well as Big John (John Kwiatkowski) and Trey Packen. We need to keep playing hard and play all nine innings within intent, and we will see success," said Miller.
