WEST CHESTER, PA – West Chester beat the rain on Friday afternoon, but could not overcome an eight-run seventh inning downpour by East Stroudsburg in an 11-10 setback to the Warriors in game one of the Atlantic Super Regional at Serpico Stadium.
West Chester (32-13) scored five runs off ESU closer Tommy Dunleavy, including a four-run ninth, but East Stroudsburg (41-18) held on, thanks to two terrific plays in the field in the bottom of the ninth, and sits in the driver's seat following the opening game of the best-of-3 series to decide who goes to the NCAA Division II National Championships in Cary, N.C.
"When you lose a one-run game, you tend to look back and see where you could have gotten a run here, or there," West Chester head coach
Mike LaRosa said. "It was a nightmare of a seventh, and it seemed like everything they hit found a hole. We just couldn't stop the bleeding."
Trailing 5-1 entering the seventh, East Stroudsburg finally got to West Chester starter
Joe Sperone (Broomall, Pa./Cardinal O'Hara). He gave up three of the eight, before LaRosa went to freshman reliever
Kyle Lazer (Havertown, Pa./Msgr. Bonner & Prendie). However, Lazer only lasted two-thirds of an inning, allowing five runs on four hits. He threw a wild pitch and hit two batters.
"You have to keep battling," East Stroudsburg head coach John Kochmansky said afterwards. "We put together a big inning, and that's kind of how we play. We aren't a bunt team. We play for the big inning, and it just happened to work out today.
"When you have an inning like that, you have to have things go your way. You need help. They hit a few batters, and there were balls that we didn't square up, but they found a way to fall in."
Sophomore second baseman,
Zack Miles (Hatfield, Pa./North Penn), hit a two-out, three-run home run to left field that almost brought West Chester back. However, a diving catch in right field by the Warriors' Ben Piriparvel, and first baseman Jack Rothenhausler's snare of a high chopper earlier in the ninth, turned out to be game-savers.
"Jack (Rothenhausler) was locked in. It was great to see him make a play like that," ESU catcher Tim Haverstick said. "And, Ben (Piriparvel) has been making plays like that all season long. That was an awesome catch."
Miles' third home run of the season to left pulled West Chester within one. Junior catcher
J.R. Gifford (Doylestown, Pa./Archbishop Wood) hit his seventh homer of the year off the scoreboard in in the eighth.
"We've had a next-man-up mentality all year," Miles said. "That's what we try to do – just get the next guy to the plate and keep the lineup rolling."
West Chester tallied single runs in the second, third and fourth, and then pushed a couple across in the fifth that gave the hosts a 5-0 lead.
Sean Szestowicki (Mount Royal, N.J./Kingway Regional) stayed hot at the plate with a RBI double in the second.
Joe Kaleck (Southampton, Pa./Neshaminy) hit a sacrifice fly in the third, and Gifford doubled home a run in the fourth.
Luke Cantwell (Broomall, Pa./Marple Newtown) had a two-run single in the fifth.
Sperone was effective through six. He surrendered just one run on four hits, before ESU started its rally in the seventh. On the flip side, West Chester scored half its runs in the game on the Warriors' ace Chase Nowak, who lasted five innings, allowing five runs on nine hits.
Weather permitting, West Chester and East Stroudsburg will be at it again on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Serpico Stadium.
