Box Score

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – For the second game in a row, Gettysburg pushed 15th-ranked Johns Hopkins to the brink, but the Blue Jays capitalized on another late-game home run and edged the Bullets 6-5 in Centennial Conference (CC) baseball action Friday afternoon at Kirchhoff Field.
 
Ryan Orgielewicz hit a solo shot in the top of the ninth for Johns Hopkins, breaking a 5-5 tie before reliever Sean McCracken fanned the side in the bottom of the inning. The Blue Jays also hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the eighth inning of their 6-3 victory over the Bullets in Baltimore this past Wednesday.
 
Gettysburg (17-10-2, 5-3 CC) seized a 4-0 lead in the first inning on four hits versus Hopkins starter Jack Bunting. However, Bunting would blank the Bullets over his final four innings before the Blue Jays tied the game with a four-run sixth.
 
Johns Hopkins (22-6, 7-1 CC) went in front with an unearned run in the seventh, but the Bullets pulled even in the eighth on a double from senior J.J. Lucido (St. Paul's, Md./Woodstock). However, McCracken escaped without further damage with an inning-ending strikeout.
 
Lucido and senior catcher Will Anderson (Long Valley, N.J./West Morris Central) ripped two hits apiece for the Bullets while Anderson also scored twice and threw out a runner on the bases.
 
Junior Chuck Probst (North Bend, Pa./Bucktail) was held hitless for the first time in 29 games this season for the Bullets, going 0-for-3 while seeing his 31-game hitting streak come to an end. It is the third-longest streak in Centennial Conference history and believed to be the second-longest in school history.
 
Mike Eberle went 4-for-5 for the Blue Jays while Mike Smith finished 3-for-5. McCracken (2-1) earned the win, yielding just one run over the last four innings while striking out eight.
 
Coming off back-to-back nine-inning shutouts in his last two starts, senior Chase Stopyra (Ocean, N.J./Christian Brothers Academy) started on the mound for the Bullets and continued his hot streak, blanking Hopkins over the first five innings. He tossed a three-up, three-down first before Probst was hit with Bunting's first pitch of the game in the bottom of the inning, setting off Gettysburg's early outburst.
 
Sneed followed up with a double before Anderson blooped a single into left, scoring Probst. Two batters later, Lucido brought home Sneed with a single of his own before freshman Joe Giovinco (Stirling, N.J./Seton Hall Prep) capped the big inning, doubling over the centerfielder's head to clear the bases and hand the Bullets their early four-run advantage.
 
Bunting allowed just three baserunners over his last four innings on two errors and a walk, allowing Hopkins to rally. In the fifth, he left a runner on third after Sneed walked, stole second, and moved to third on a groundout.
 
Meanwhile, Stopyra allowed just three baserunners on a trio of singles through the first five innings. But he ran into trouble in the sixth, when No. 9 hitter Tommy Mee drew a leadoff walk. Two batters later, Brian Lin worked another base on balls before Smith singled to load the bases. Orgielewicz then broke up the shutout with a one-run single before Stopyra hit Alex Darwich to score another run, prompting a Gettysburg pitching change.
 
Sophomore Will Wortmann (Bedford, N.Y./Fox Lane) got the second out of the inning when Daniel Albert lined  out to left for a sacrifice fly that made it 4-3, but Eberle followed up with a run-scoring single to tie the game at 4-all before Wortmann escaped with a flyout.
 
Connor Reynolds sparked the Blue Jays with a one-out single in the seventh, and on the next at-bat, a potential double-play ball was thrown away at first, erasing Reynolds but putting Lin on second. Smith then singled through the left side to score Lin to put Hopkins back on top, 5-4. Wortmann prevented further damage when he struck out consecutive batters to end the inning.
 
After McCracken retired the first seven batters he faced, the Bullets broke through when Anderson hit a scorching liner back through the box for a one-out single in the eighth. Two batters later, Lucido smashed a 1-2 pitch deep into the left-center gap to score Anderson from first, pulling the Bullets even. But McCracken ended the inning with a strikeout, setting up the decisive ninth inning.
 
Stopyra yielded four runs on five hits and two walks while striking out three in a 5 1/3 innings of a no-decision. Wortmann (1-3) gave up two runs (one earned) on seven hits while fanning three over 3 2/3 innings.
 
Gettysburg returns to action on Saturday, when it visits Ursinus in a Centennial Conference doubleheader starting at 12:30 p.m.