COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Small ball, the long ball, and long relief added up to a critical victory for the Ursinus College baseball team in Friday's Centennial Conference clash with Franklin & Marshall. The Bears got two home runs from senior Chris Jablonski and eight impressive relief innings from sophomores Pierce Greenleaf and Matt Radwanski, going ahead to stay on a safety squeeze in the sixth to erase a pair of three-run deficits and post a 7-6 triumph they desperately needed.
Ursinus (16-11, 2-4) snapped a four-game skid in thrilling fashion, coming back from 3-0 and 5-2 holes to avenge a 3-2 setback in Lancaster three days prior. With Jablonski supplying the power, Greenleaf and Radwanski made sure his latest monster performance wasn't for naught.
Jablonski's second two-run shot of the afternoon, a towering blast to right field, gave the Bears their first lead at 6-5 in the bottom of the fifth. It also marked the 16th of his career, moving him past Ben Gresh '12 and into second on the school's all-time list.
Franklin & Marshall (12-15, 3-5), which fell one game short of the CC title a year ago, responded immediately in the sixth, drawing even with a double and a single off Greenleaf. But the right-hander kept the Diplomats right there, finishing off his fifth inning of relief.
The offense made Greenleaf a winner in the sixth, as junior Alex Campbell drew a one-out walk and took third on a perfectly executed hit and run, a dribbler through the right side by classmate Vincent Terry. Junior Travis Kozak bunted back to the F&M pitcher, but his throw home was too late to nab a streaking Campbell, who slid home with the eventual winning run.
Radwanski came in for the seventh and never left. The only baserunner he allowed was on a dropped pop-up with two outs in the seventh, and the right-hander delivered 1-2-3 frames in the eighth and ninth to nail down a nine-out save, his third of the season, as the Bears defeated F&M in Collegeville for the first time since 2012.
Greenleaf (2-0) allowed four hits and just the one run in his five frames, striking out one without a walk.
Luke Seib was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI for the Diplomats, while Casey Bulik had a two-run single that gave the visitors a 5-2 lead in the top of the second. Seib's two-out single capped a three-run first, which Jablonski answered with a moon shot to right center in the bottom of the frame.
Jablonski's two bombs gave him the second multi-homer game of his career, and the four RBI marked a season high. In addition to climbing the all-time home run ranks, Jablonski moved into fourth in program history in hits (146).
Juniors Jay Farrell and Jose Colon each had two hits and scored a run for the Bears, who had lost 13 of their previous 15 meetings with F&M coming in to Friday's contest. Terry finished 2-for-5 with a double, while Kozak was 1-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored; he also made a nice running grab just in front of the wall on a hard-hit ball in the top of the eighth.
The Bears continue CC play with a doubleheader at Dickinson on Saturday.
