Box Score

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Sophomore Ryan Taylor scattered 10 hits over eight innings while striking out 11 and Gettysburg jumped out to a quick start en route to a 6-2 victory over McDaniel College in a Centennial Conference baseball game Thursday afternoon at a sunny, windy Kirchhoff Field.

The Bullets (10-20, 4-11 CC) scored five runs in the first inning to provide more than enough run support for Taylor (4-4), who left the game prior to the ninth inning after throwing 129 pitches.

Freshmen Tommy LeNoir and Patrick O'Grady each went 2-for-4 with a double to lead the Bullets at the plate while senior Chris Simard and junior Clint O'Brien also had two hits apiece.

Gettysburg scored all its runs with two outs.

Taylor, who did not walk a batter for the third consecutive start, was coming off an impressive outing in which he retired the final 25 batters he faced in a 3-0 loss to Johns Hopkins on Friday. Though the sailing wasn't as smooth against the Green Terror – he was without the benefit of a three-up, three-down inning – he consistently worked out of trouble and left 10 runners on base, including six that were in scoring position.

With his 11 strikeouts, Taylor has now fanned at least 10 in four of his last five starts. He also broke into Gettysburg's single-season top-10 list for strikeouts, moving into seventh with 70 Ks.

Gio Fricchione (1-5) suffered the loss for McDaniel, throwing six innings and yielding all six Bullet runs on 11 hits and two walks. Tyler Jackow, Pat Christopher, Chris Longo, and Ricky LaSota all had two hits for the Green Terror (11-16, 4-11 CC).

McDaniel took an early 1-0 lead with an unearned run in the top of the first. Jackow punched a double down the rightfield line leading off before Taylor struck out the next two batters. But then on a pitch in the dirt that senior Cory Jackmuff blocked in front of him, Jackow broke for third. Jackmuff's throw to third was missed, allowing Jackow to score.

Gettysburg answered in the bottom of the frame, scoring all five runs with two outs. Simard slapped a one-out single up the middle before senior Matt Karis drew a two-out walk. Sophomore Pat Cody and O'Brien followed up back-to-back RBI-singles before LeNoir delivered a run-scoring double into the left-center gap. O'Brien plated the Bullets' fourth run when he scored on a wild pitch before Jackmuff capped the inning an RBI-infield single.

Neither team would score again until the fifth, though McDaniel left two runners on base in both the third and fourth. In the fifth, Christopher reached on a bunt single before scoring following a Longo single and a LaSota double that made it 5-2. But in perhaps the most crucial point in the game, Taylor induced a flyout to end the inning, stranding runners on second and third.

The Bullets got the run back in the sixth, again with two outs, on a hustling double from O'Grady and another single up the middle from Simard.

McDaniel threatened again in the sixth on a pair of hits that did not leave the infield. With two outs, Brandon Kline reached on a squibber in front of the plate before Jackow bunted his way on, but Taylor again escaped with a flyout.

Sophomore Brett Norton threw a scoreless ninth for the Bullets, walking two and fanning one. Mike Freeman tossed two innings of scoreless relief for McDaniel.

The same two teams meet again on Friday at McDaniel for another nine-inning game starting at 3:30 p.m.