Grantham, PA — Following a 12-4 loss to MAC Commonwealth foe Elizabethtown College Friday afternoon at Starry Field, the Messiah College baseball team can only hope that history has a way of continuing to repeat.
Messiah (22-11, 7-3) has found the goings difficult in conference Fridays this year, posting a 1-3 record overall. The team has swept its three league double-headers to date, however, giving Falcons' head coach Bryan Engle a good reason to look back when thinking ahead.
“I don't know why we've (played better) in Saturday double-headers, but we have,” he said following the team's worst league loss of the season Friday. “Today, we got beat, plain and simple. We're obviously anxious to play a double-dip tomorrow. You have to tip your cap to E'Town, as they played well today. But we got beat, and there's not much more you can say.”
Elizabethtown (17-9, 6-1) used an explosive, six-run second inning to permanently take the wind out of Messiah's sails, as senior Dan Kern (5-3) suffered the pitching loss in a starting role.
After Messiah loaded the bases and came up empty in the bottom of the first, the visiting Blue Jays poured in six runs off of six hits in its half of the second. That number may have been higher had it not been for the Falcons' double play to end the stanza, throwing out a pair of E'Town base runners attempting to steal.
For Engle's club however, it would be a continual case of leaving runners on base, as again in the second inning Messiah left the bases loaded when the final out was retired. On the afternoon, the Falcons stranded 14, a stat evident in the club's 13 hits to just four runs scored ratio.
“We actually hit the ball fairly well today, we just didn't get them at the right times,” Engle said. “I was disappointed in that I thought we weren't very smart at times offensively. I didn't think we shortened up our swings and we continually seemed to be trying to make the big play. We addressed that afterward, and hopefully we'll learn from it and move on.”
Messiah felt the strong urge to get everything back in a hurry, as E'Town added another run in the fifth inning via a home run from the Blue Jays' starting pitcher, Sam Heaps. A single from senior Ben Jordan helped Messiah get back two in the bottom of that inning, but another four runs from Elizabethtown in the sixth made it a 11-2 contest.
Engle's team tacked on single runs in the eighth and ninth innings, as senior Craig Mease registered his seventh homer of the season in the former, getting within two of the single-season record set by 2005 graduate Chris Heisey.
Junior Ben Kirk followed with another solo home run in the ninth, making the final margin of difference only slightly more aesthetic.
Senior Chandler Sheaffer came on in relief of Kern, throwing one and two-thirds innings while giving up two runs off of two hits. Kern went five and one-third, giving up nine runs off of 11 hits. Freshman Eric Spring came on for the final two innings of work, striking out two while allowing one run off of three hits.
All Messiah starters hit safely in the game, led by Mease's 1-2, one RBI performance. Sophomore Jordan Zimmerman finished 2-5 with two doubles in scoring a run, while Kirk finished 3-5 with his home run and a double as well.
Messiah now travels to E'Town Saturday to complete the league series with a double-header, as the team looks to finish its conference slate undefeated in Saturday play. Significant post-season seeding rests on the day's results, as Messiah could still earn the top seed for the conference playoffs pending a pair of wins.
“Hopefully we'll be able to play a little more loose and a little more free tomorrow than we did today,” Engle said.
Game time for the first of two is set for 12 p.m. at Elizabethtown Saturday.
