Box Score
By Cody Swartz, GoMessiah.com reporter
Grantham, PA — After opening the 2011 season with losses in 11 of its first 15 games, it appears that the Messiah baseball team is finally starting to figure things out.
The Falcons rattled off their seventh straight win Monday afternoon at Starry Field, and perhaps the most impressive yet: Behind a strong blend of offense and a phenomenal pitching performance by freshman sensation Jon Lapp, Messiah took down nationally-ranked Johns Hopkins University by a 9-1 score.
Lapp (2-1), making his fourth start of the season for Messiah, threw a gem for six innings, holding the 12th-ranked Blue Jays — a unit batting .313 as a team — without a single run. He allowed just three hits and three walks, while striking out three batters.
“Jon Lapp is an extraordinary freshman,” said Steve DeRiggs, Messiah head coach. “He has tremendous composure on the mound, he's competitive and he is very special and unique. He has tremendous confidence and will be a front-of-the-line starter for us. We're not afraid to use him in any game.”
Perhaps most impressive of Lapp's performance was that he twice worked his way out of bases-loaded jams, once in the second inning by inducing a groundout and again in the sixth by forcing a harmless popup. In all, 11 Blue Jays batted against Lapp with a man on base; not a single one recorded a hit.
“It's often a measure of a pitcher's ability to get themselves out of jams and not let runners on base score. Lapp did a great job of that today,” DeRiggs said.
In relief, sophomore Drew Frankenfield threw three strong innings, allowing a lone ninth inning run. Making his third outing of the year on the mound for the Falcons, Frankenfield (1) struck out four and, by pitching the final three innings in a relief appearance, earned a save for the game.
“Drew has always had a lot of potential as a pitcher, but we just never gave him the opportunity,” DeRiggs said. “When he came here last year as a freshman, we liked what we saw, and now he's responded well in his chances. He did a great job against a nationally-ranked team.”
With Messiah (11-11) scoring runs in bunches, it was a successful all-around day for DeRiggs' team that has now captured seven consecutive wins since returning from its spring break Florida trip.
“We've won seven in a row and we're on a pretty nice roll,” DeRiggs said. “We know at this point that we can play with any team in the country. We came into this season with only four or five returning starters in the field and we've had to respond to a lot of adversity so far.”
Leading the charge on offense were juniors Sam Tajiri and Wes Hollenbach, each of whom collected three hits among the Falcons' season-high 15 for the day. It was the highest hit total Messiah had in a game since last year's 22-10 win over Widener University in the Commonwealth Conference Tournament May 6. It was also Messiah's first win over Johns Hopkins (9-6) in the 2000's.
In addition to Tajiri and Hollenbach's output, classmates Ryan Brown and Tory Arnesen added two hits apiece, and every member of the Falcons' starting lineup recorded a hit, with seven of the eight also recording either a run or an RBI.
The Falcons scored two runs in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead and gave Lapp run support, tacking on two more runs in the third and two more in the fourth. A fifth inning solo run and two more in the seventh completed the scoring on the day for Messiah, which scored in five of its eight at-bats.
“I think we're being much more aggressive early on in the counts,” DeRiggs said. “This is something we've stressed, and it's nice to see it paying off. I think the guys are really seeing the ball well out there. (Freshman) Luke Weaver had a very important base hit for us that started the scoring, and Tajiri and Hollenbach had big days as well. Life is just easier when those two guys are on a roll, and it's nice to see them hitting like they can.”
The Falcons play another top-ranked team on Tuesday, traveling to Ewing, New Jersey to play The College of New Jersey (13-2), ranked 25th in the latest NCBWA/D3baseball.com. Game time is 3:30 p.m.
