Box Score

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Gettysburg opened its six-game, four-day Centennial Conference series on the wrong foot, dropping a 12-3 decision to McDaniel College Thursday afternoon at Kirchhoff Field.

With the loss, Gettysburg (13-15, 6-5 CC) falls a half game behind McDaniel (13-8, 6-4 CC) and Johns Hopkins for the fourth and final conference playoff spot with seven league contests remaining.

Brian Rosato (3-3) threw seven innings of five-hit ball to earn the win for the Green Terror, which won for the fifth time in its last six games. Jon Zimmerman led McDaniel at the plate, going 3-for-4 with three runs and two RBIs.

The Green Terror took advantage of five Gettysburg errors, which tied the Bullets season-high, and scored its first five runs unearned.

Junior Craig Barrows (Whippany, N.J./Whippany Park) went 3-for-4 with two RBIs for Gettysburg while classmate Mike Backus (Piscataway, N.J./Immaculata) ripped a pair of doubles. Backus now has a conference-leading 13 two-baggers for the season, just one shy of the school record set by Chip Rossi in 1987.

Sophomore Matt Karis (Southborough, Mass./Noble & Greenough) suffered his first loss since opening day on March 4 despite yielding only two earned runs over the first seven innings. Karis (4-2) allowed seven runs on nine hits while walking one and fanning three.

McDaniel pushed across its first run on one hit and two errors in the second before adding four more in the third, utilizing four hits and three errors to take a 5-0 lead. The Green Terror pushed their advantage to 7-0 in the fifth, getting a two-run homer from Matthew Pace.

Rosato blanked the Bullets on two hits over the first five frames before Backus doubled and scored on a Barrows single. The two teams traded runs in the eighth, with McDaniel scoring once against freshman reliever Mike Odierna (Weston, Conn./Weston) and Gettysburg getting another double and run-scoring single from Barrows, making it 8-2.

The visitors put the game out of reach in the ninth, plating four more runs against senior Will Kleva (Ocean City, N.J./Ocean City). The Bullets posted their final run when junior Kevin Langhauser (Basking Ridge, N.J./Ridge) smacked his fifth triple of the season, extending his hitting streak to 11, and scored on a sacrifice fly.

Harold Baines, Russell Coover, Andrew Worm, and Pace all finished with two hits for McDaniel. Pace drove in three runs and scored twice while Baines had two RBIs. Coover and Worm both scored a pair of runs.

The same two teams hit the diamond again on Friday, when they meet in Westminster, Md. in another nine-inning game starting at 3:30 p.m.