Elizabethtown, PA — The Messiah College baseball team's hopes of a number one seed for the upcoming MAC Commonwealth playoffs ended Saturday, as the Falcons dropped 7-11 and 1-3 decisions to host Elizabethtown College.
It was Messiah's first conference losses of the season in Saturday double-header action, while those firsts could not have occurred at a more inopportune time: Messiah (22-13, 7-5) will now finish as the number two or three seed for post-season league play, pending the results of next weekend's Elizabethtown-Albright College series.
Saturday against the Blue Jays, things were just not meant to be for the Falcons, as Messiah left 11 runners on base in the day's first game while hitting into four double-plays in the second.
“My thoughts for the day were really my thoughts on the series, as E'Town was very opportunistic and we were not,” said Bryan Engle, Messiah head coach. “Really, that's what baseball is about. They got big hits and put the ball into play, didn't strike out too much and created situations to be successful.”
Elizabethown (19-9, 8-1) made the most of a variety of opportunities in Saturday's opener, scoring runs in five of its six at bats while scoring multiple runs in four innings. The Blue Jays opened with four runs in the first two stanzas, only for Messiah to tie the game in the top of the third. A double from senior Kyle Stuckey and a single from sophomore Jon Shenk brought home two runs, while junior Ben Kirk scored on a wild pitch. Messiah had already plated one run in the second inning, when junior Jonny Ebersole walked for a bases-loaded RBI.
Freshman pitcher Travis Thome (4-1) had his first lackluster outing of the season on the mound, however, as E'Town would score four more runs in the bottom of the third. The Blue Jays cashed in on six third-inning singles to score four runs after a two-out homer plated the team's two runs in the second.
Messiah would pull within a 9-7 score after a three-run fifth inning — doubles from sophomores Adam Ranck and Sheldon Witmer combined to push those across — but Elizabethtown would respond with two more runs in the bottom of the stanza to keep things from getting interesting in the final two innings.
Stuckey, Ranck and senior Ben Snyder all registered two hits in the loss, with Witmer carding two RBI off his fifth-inning double. Thome went four innings while giving up a season-high 14 hits, leading to nine earned runs. Senior Ben Jordan came on in relief, tossing the final two innings while allowing two hits and two scores, only one of which was earned.
“It's tough to play catch up,” Engle said. “It was the first time this year that Travis got hit around pretty hard, and unfortunately we couldn't support him. Anytime the opponent is putting crooked numbers on the board, that's not a good thing, especially in a seven-inning game where you don't have as many opportunities to try and catch up.”
Senior pitcher Jeremy Stoltzfus (3-4) got a late-decision start from Engle in the day's second game, and came on to toss what was the Falcons' best pitching performance of the series. Stoltzfus allowed just six Blue Jay hits while striking out six, giving his team an ample chance to steal a road victory.
Sadly for Messiah, the offense was just too sparse to matter. A lead-off double from senior Craig Mease was followed with an RBI single from Kirk in the first inning, giving the Falcons a 1-0 lead. Engle's club then got into the bad habit of hitting extremely hard balls right at Blue Jay defenders, as Messiah was doubled off four times — three of which came via line drive, tag outs.
E'Town put up two runs in the second and one in the fourth off of four hits, constituting the entirety of its offense.
Mease, Ranck, Kirk, Shenk and Snyder each registered a hit to compile Messiah's five total knocks, while Mease's lead-off double was the only extra-base hit of the contest for Messiah.
The impressiveness of Stoltzfus' complete-game effort was magnified by his having only three days' rest, as the senior went seven full innings in Tuesday's 3-9 loss against seventh-ranked College of New Jersey.
“Jeremy really gave us a chance today,” Engle said. “I told him again today, his improvement this season has been incredible. He's pitched some games that we didn't win, but he kept us in the game and gave us an opportunity today. Offensively for us in the second game, it was a bit of the uncontrollable. What can you do? We hit the ball hard and did what we needed to do, we just couldn't find the spots on the field where they were not. I did think the guys' attitudes after the game were pretty good. You realize sometimes that that's just the way baseball goes. You don't get every bounce, and we've had our fair share of games where everything seemed to go our way this year. This series, things did not.”
Messiah will next close out its regular-season with five out-of-conference games spanning the next week. The Falcons will await the Friday-Saturday three-game series between E'Town and Albright to learn of its post-season conference playoff seeding.
The Falcons will travel to nearby Dickinson College Monday for a single, nine-inning contest. Game time is set for 3:30 p.m.
