Baseball Swept by Rhode Island in Thursday RussMatt Action
AUBURNDALE, Fla. – Penn State Altoona baseball took a pair of losses on Thursday afternoon in the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational, as the Lions were swept by Rhode Island College in a doubleheader at Lake Myrtle Park.
Penn State Altoona (1-8) lost game one by a final score of 6-3, then fell 7-3 in the nightcap.
Game One: Rhode Island 6, Penn State Altoona 3
Rhode Island (7-1) secured a lead early in the game and never looked back, defeating the Lions by three.
Richard Carey (Milton, DE/Cape Henlopen) went 2-for-2 with a run batted in, Dylan Bates (Towanda, PA/Towanda) was 2-for-3, and Catcher Cumming (Altoona, PA/Altoona) was 2-for-3 with a double and a run scored.
Clayton Hain (Schaefferstown, PA/Eastern Lebanon County) was 1-for-3 with a triple and a run scored, George Stiuso (Milford, NJ/Gill St. Bernard's) hit 1-for-3 with a triple and an RBI, and Hunter Breon (Boiling Springs, PA/Boiling Springs) was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.
Zane Leister (Middleburg, PA/Midd-West) started on the mound and tossed 4 2/3 innings, striking out three batters and taking the loss. Jaryd Palmer (Northumberland, PA/Shikellamy) pitched 1 1/3 innings out of the bullpen, striking out two batters.
Stiuso's RBI triple in the top of the first inning put Penn State Altoona on the board, but Rhode Island struck back with two runs in the bottom half of the inning to grab the lead. Ray Zincone's RBI single to right-center preceded a bases-loaded walk by Ryan Rotondo that made it 2-0.
The Anchormen doubled their lead in the second, when Nick D'Ambra's triple scored a run, and then he scored when a throwing error allowed him to advance home from third base. Rommy Morel's RBI double in the fifth increased the Rhode Island lead to 5-1, and Sam Franco's run-scoring single in the sixth made it 6-1.
Penn State Altoona plated a pair in the top of the seventh, getting sacrifice fly outs from Carey and Joey Brown (Wading River, NY/Shoreham-Wading River) to score runs. But the Lions were unable to do any further damage, falling to Rhode Island by three.
Game Two: Rhode Island College 7, Penn State Altoona 3
The Lions' bats struggled to get going, as Penn State Altoona was held hitless until the sixth inning and finished with just three hits in the game.
Hain started on the mound and took the loss, pitching five innings and striking out four batters along the way. Hunter Johnson (Shippensburg, PA/Shippensburg) tossed two innings in relief.
Timothy Richard (Douglassville, PA/Daniel Boone) was 1-for-2 with a run scored, Aidan Plants (Montoursville, PA/Montoursville) hit 1-for-3 with a run scored, and Cumming was also 1-for-3.
Rhode Island scored two in the top of the first on Rotondo's bases-loaded walk and Nick Feola's bases-loaded hit by pitch. D'Ambra's RBI double in the second drove in a pair of runs to extend the Anchormen's lead to 4-0, and run-scoring singles by Nick Feola and Morel in the fifth made it 6-0. Another RBI double by D'Ambra increased the Rhode Island lead to 7-0 in the sixth.
Penn State Altoona scored three runs in the bottom half of the sixth. Richard notched the Lions' first hit of the game, then eventually came around to score on an error. Plants and Breon each scored on wild pitches to make it 7-3.
Penn State Altoona baseball is scheduled to face Worcester Polytechnic Institute tomorrow, Friday, March 13
