LANCASTER, Pa. – The Ursinus College baseball team suffered its fourth straight loss on Tuesday, as host Franklin & Marshall took the lead in the bottom of the seventh and held on for a 3-2 victory in the first leg of a Centennial Conference home-and-home doubleheader.
Ursinus (15-11, 1-4) got another strong outing from senior right-hander Sean Pisik, but Casey Bulik's RBI single in the seventh proved the winning run for Franklin & Marshall (12-14, 3-4), which continued its recent hold on the series. The Diplomats have taken 13 of the last 15 meetings between the two clubs.
The Bears overturned a 1-0 deficit with a pair of fifth-inning runs, the first coming courtesy of an RBI groundout by junior Vincent Terry, which brought in classmate Kieran Geyer two batters after his leadoff double. After consecutive singles by senior Chris Jablonski and junior Austin Feuerman, junior Jay Farrell made it three in a row with a run-scoring base hit to right, handing Ursinus its first lead of the afternoon.
It didn't last long. The Diplomats answered right back in the bottom half, as the leadoff hitter singled and went to second on an error. After a sacrifice bunt, Bulik delivered the tying run with a sacrifice fly.
Two innings later, Bulik plated the go-ahead marker with a single to right, putting runners on the corners with only one out. Pisik bore down, retiring the next two Franklin & Marshall hitters to keep the deficit at one. But Ursinus managed only a one-out single in the eighth, which was quickly erased on a double play, and Andrew Mascis nailed down his CC-leading sixth save of the season with a 1-2-3 ninth.
Mack Glavin pitched well for the Diplomats, working into the eighth and allowing two runs on nine hits.
Pisik matched Glavin by getting one out into the eighth; he surrendered three runs (only two earned) on eight hits with two walks and four strikeouts. Sophomore Matt Radwanski came on to escape a two-on, one-out jam in the bottom of the eighth.
Jablonski was 2-for-2 with a run scored, also getting hit twice to reach base all four times. Jablonski's two hits moved him past Ryan Smith '02 and into fifth on the school's all-time list; he needs only six more to reach 150 and take over third place by himself. Jablonski has a hit in seven straight games, going 12-for-25 (.440) with three home runs, eight runs scored, and ten RBI.
Farrell finished 2-for-4, extending his hitting streak to nine games, and Geyer scored a run in addition to his seventh double of the season.
The Bears will look to salvage a split of the season series on Friday, when they welcome the Diplomats to Thomas Field for a 3:30 CC contest.