Grantham, PA — It may not be time to hit the panic button just yet, but this is certainly not where the Messiah baseball team expected to be six games into MAC Commonwealth play.
Following Lebanon Valley College's series sweep of the Falcons — which concluded in 4-1 and 7-6 wins Saturday — Messiah (7-16-1, 1-5) has just one league win in six league contests, seemingly coming up just shy each time: Four of the team's losses have come by two runs or less.
After sweeping LVC (10-11-1, 3-0) in last year's three-game series, head coach Bryan Engle was asked what needed to happen to turn his club around.
His answer came directly back to himself.
“It's my job to find a way to lead this team, and I have to find a better way to get these guys prepared,” Engle said Saturday night. “Whatever I'm doing isn't working right now. I have to trust in our philosophies and trust in my own leadership style, while at the same time make some adjustments. The onus is on me.”
Saturday afternoon, the onus appeared to be on a lack of timely hits and some irregular mishaps in the field for Messiah, as the visiting Dutchmen cruised to the Game One win before pulling a dramatic 10-inning victory in the nightcap.
LVC opened the day with a workmanlike, 4-1 win, as the Dutchmen's Jake Becker went the distance on the mound allowing just four hits while striking out five and walking three.
Junior Sheldon Witmer (3-2) was saddled with the pitching defeat for the Falcons, also going the full seven innings while allowing just three hits en route to three earned runs.
After a Falcons' error led to an unearned score for LVC in the top of the first, the Dutchmen tacked on two more in the fourth and another in the fifth, as a triple and a double brought all three runs across. Messiah stranded just two base runners until getting its lone score in the sixth inning, as a double from junior Adam Ranck brought Witmer home, who had reached on a walk.
Ranck would be stranded to end that inning while a pair of seventh-inning lead-off singles would go unrewarded as well, as Messiah brought the game-tying run to the plate three times before striking out and flying out twice to end the game.
As sophomore Eric Spring started on the mound for Messiah in the second game, Engle could not have imagined how the contest would end.
Following nine full innings and a 2-2 score, LVC blasted both a grand slam and a solo homer in the top of the 10th inning off of junior reliever Elliot Thomas, taking a 7-2 lead and seemingly sucking the life out of the Starry Field crowd.
Aside from those hits, Thomas (0-1) was good, giving up no hits in two and two-thirds innings of work. Spring was incredible on the mound in his sixth start of the year, allowing just three hits while striking out eight of 28 batters faced.
And even after Messiah found itself down 7-2 heading into the bottom of the 10th, Engle's team would come ever-so-close to winning the game.
Three hits would lead to four Falcon runs in the stanza, as singles from sophomore Sean Hart and Ranck brought three runs across while an issued walk to freshman Jon Brubaker plated another.
With two outs retired and the bases still loaded, Kirk came up for the second time in the inning — he led off with a walk — and could only manage a fielder's choice, as LVC retired Witmer on his way from first to second to end the game.
For the nightcap, Messiah had outhit LVC by a 14-5 count while committing three errors. The Falcons stranded a total 13 base runners compared to just five for the visitors.
“Our starting pitching threw well enough to get the wins today,” Engle said. “I told Eric Spring before the (second) game that we needed him to have his best game yet and my gosh, did he ever. You get that kind of pitching, you're going to win 95 percent of the time. We got some hits, but we just couldn't bunch them together. Credit LVC, though. They made the most of the opportunities we gave them, and they created some opportunities for themselves.”
Kirk paced Messiah's offense in the day's closer, going 3-6 with two runs scored and a double. Ranck went 2-6 with two RBI, while Witmer blasted his sixth double of the year in a 2-5 plate performance. Hart also drove in two runs on a 3-5 effort. Junior Jon Shenk batted one in, going 2-3 on the game.
“Whatever we do, we have to stay after it,” Engle said. “No one on this team enjoys losing, and we don't expect to lose. You can be rest assured that I'm going to keep working to find a way to help us play our best baseball.”
The schedule gets no easier for the club, as Messiah will travel to perennial power The College of New Jersey Tuesday before hosting 2008 NCAA Division III World Series participant Johns Hopkins University Wednesday. Game time for a single, nine-inning affair at TCNJ is set for 3 p.m.
