COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Johns Hopkins continued its scorching play at the expense of the Ursinus College baseball team on Saturday afternoon, swelling its unbeaten streak to 13 with 8-2 and 4-1 victories in a Centennial Conference twin bill.
Johns Hopkins (24-9-2, 11-2-1) has not lost in almost a month, and the CC frontrunners showed why with two more dominating efforts to spoil the Bears' Senior Day. The Blue Jays, who clinched a berth in the upcoming conference tournament, have won five in a row and 16 of 17 in the series.
Ursinus (16-17, 2-10) hung around for much of the opener, pulling even at 1 on junior Alex Campbell's RBI double into the left-center gap in the bottom of the third. But Daniel Albert led off the fourth with the first of his two home runs on the afternoon, giving Johns Hopkins a lead it would never relinquish.
The Blue Jays broke it open in the fifth, scoring six runs – all unearned – courtesy of back-to-back Bear errors. With a man on first and one out, Ursinus' attempt to force the runner at second sailed into left field. The next batter bounced a potential double-play ball to short, but Ursinus dropped the toss to second as a run came home. Albert followed with another mammoth shot over the fence in right-center, making it 6-1 and chasing hard-luck sophomore Pierce Greenleaf.
The Blue Jays tacked on another in the frame and cruised from there.
Albert drove in four runs for Johns Hopkins, while Conor Reynolds (2-for-5, two runs, RBI) and Raul Shah (2-for-5, RBI) each had a pair of hits. Preston Betz (2-1) picked up the win in relief, striking out four and allowing just two hits in 3.1 innings.
Greenleaf (2-1) took the loss; he surrendered six runs (only two earned) on six hits and struck out three in 4.1 innings. Campbell was 3-for-4 with an RBI at the dish.
Senior Chris Jablonski – honored alongside classmates Vince Piccioni, Sean Pisik, and William DiCiurcio before the game – had two hits, including the 150th of his career; he is only the third player in school history to reach that milestone.
The Blue Jays used a superb effort from Carter Burns to clinch the sweep. The right-hander went the distance, conceding only four hits and a single run with nine strikeouts to just one walk.
Johns Hopkins scored single runs in the first and second to open an early lead, and the score stayed there until junior Travis Kozak got the Bears on the board with an RBI groundout in the fifth, slicing the deficit in half.
But the Blue Jays picked up some crucial insurance in the eighth, when Albert led off with a double and scored on Shah's base hit to center. Shah later came around on Brian Lin's one-out double, making it 4-1 in favor of the visitors.
Junior Lou Aikins (2-5) pitched well for the Bears, allowing four runs (three earned) on nine hits in seven innings.
Ursinus is right back at it on Sunday, when Washington College comes to town for a CC doubleheader starting at 12:30 p.m.