Grantham, PA - There was not a shortage of offense on Monday afternoon when the Messiah Falcons and Hood Blazers squared off in the rubber match of their three game series. After splitting a pair of games on Saturday, the Falcons took a 15-11 victory over the Blazers to win the series.
 
Every Falcon to come to the plate recorded a hit and eight of the nine Falcons' starters scored at least one run. Joseph Saufley (3-5, 3 RBI), Kyle Schoen (3-4, 4 RBI), and Jon Heisey (3-5, 3 RBI) all collected multi-hit and multi-RBI games.
 
The Falcons scored in six of their eight trips to the plate, putting crooked numbers on the board in the first, third, fourth, and fifth innings.
 
After Zach Luman pitched a clean first inning, the Falcons picked up three runs in the bottom half of the frame. Kyle Schoen highlighted the inning with a two-RBI single to right field. The Blazers came right back and got on the board with four runs in the top of the second to take the lead.
 
In the bottom of the third the Falcons took the lead back scoring two runs. With two-outs, Jon Heisey and Hunter Stewart connected for RBI base-hits to give the Falcons a 5-3 lead.
 
In the bottom of the fourth, the Falcons rallied with two-outs, Derek Drake started the rally with a single to left field. Drake came around to score on a Saufley triple down the right field line. Then Saufley came in to score on a Schoen single to left. After the three consecutive hits the Falcons led 7-4.
 
In the top of the fifth, the Hood Blazers tallied four runs to take an 8-7 lead. The inning was highlighted by a towering two-run home run to right center field by Blazers' catcher Josh Gall.
 
After the four-run top of the fifth, the Falcons would come to bat and score six runs of their own. Messiah made the most on a two-out Hood error that allowed the inning to extend, with five of their fifth innings runs coming in after the error.
 
Heading to the sixth the Falcons held a 13-8 lead, however the Blazers would knock in two runs in the sixth to cut the lead to 13-10. Saufley would counter for Messiah with an infield single in the bottom half of the inning to score John Griffitts and push the Falcons' lead to four.
 
The two teams traded scoreless half innings in the seventh before each scoring a run in the eighth. The Flacons closed out the game with just their second three up, three down inning in the ninth to complete the 15-11 victory.
 
With the win the Falcons take the two out of three in their first ever series against the Blazers and improve their record to 8-7 in the conference (11-12 overall).
 
Messiah will be back in action on Wednesday afternoon when the Eastern Mennonite Royals travel to Grantham for a non-conference game. First pitch is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.