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GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Freshman Pat Cody finished 5-for-8 and junior Chris Simard cracked his 100th career hit, but the Gettysburg College baseball team lost both ends of a Centennial Conference doubleheader to Swarthmore College at Kirchhoff Field on Saturday.
The Garnet held off a late Bullet rally to win the opener 11-6, then used a 17-hit attack to capture the nightcap 12-6.
In the first game, Gettysburg (11-14, 3-8 CC) found itself down big right away, as Swarthmore plated five runs on two hits, three walks, and a hit batsman in the top of the first. In the meantime, Garnet starter Neil Mejia blanked the Bullets through the first four innings.
Swarthmore (15-11, 7-5 CC) pushed its advantage to 8-0 in the fifth before Gettysburg got to Mejia with a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning, which included an RBI-triple from junior Cam Riera (Medway, Mass./Medway).
Senior Craig Barrows belted his first collegiate home run – a solo shot – in the sixth to make it 10-3 before the Garnet answered with one in the seventh.
In the bottom of the frame, Zach Weiner came on in relief, and four of the first five Bullets greeted him with singles. Simard reached his milestone with a bases-loaded, RBI-single before another run scored when Barrows was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, prompting another pitching change.
Ignacio Rodriguez came out of the bullpen and promptly walked sophomore Eric Williams to make it 11-6, but he followed up with a pair of strikeouts to end the threat.
Cody finished 4-for-4 in the opener while Riera was 2-for-4 with two runs. Simard collected two hits while Barrows drove in a pair of runs.
Michael Cameron was 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs for the Garnet while Rory McTear knocked in three runs. Miles Santo scored three runs for Swarthmore.
Mejia (4-2) picked up the win on the mound while freshman John Donovan suffered the loss. Donovan (1-1) started but did not get out of the first. Senior Mike Sweeney threw the final 6 2/3 innings, yielding six runs (four earned) on nine hits.
Gettysburg took an early lead in the nightcap, when Cody roped his sixth straight hit dating back to Friday's win at Franklin & Marshall, doubling home senior Kevin Langhauser, who led off with a single. But the Garnet scored five unanswered runs from the second through the fifth against junior starter Kyle Conklin.
The Bullets cut it to 5-3 in the fourth on RBI-singles from juniors Matt Karis and Cory Jackmuff against starter Andy Allen and reliever Ramsey Walker, respectively. The visitors went up by four after a two-run sixth, but a three-run triple from senior Mike Backus in the seventh made it a one-run game (7-6). But that's when the Garnet called on Adam Hardy out of the bullpen to get a pair of outs to end the inning.
Swarthmore padded its lead with one run in the eight before breaking out with a four-run, five-hit ninth that set the final score.
Langhauser and Backus each went 2-for-4 in Game Two while Langhauser also scored two runs. Spencer Ross was 4-for-5 with three runs and two RBIs for Swarthmore, and Wiley Archibald finished 3-for-5.
Walker (2-0) worked 3 1/3 innings to get the win for the Garnet, and Hardy threw the final 2 2/3 innings to earn the save. Conklin (2-2) tossed 5 2/3 innings while absorbing the loss.
Gettysburg returns to Centennial Conference action on Sunday, when it visits conference front-runner Johns Hopkins University, ranked No. 4 by the American Baseball Coaches Association and No. 10 by D3baseball.com, for a nine-inning game starting at 2:30 p.m.
