Juniata Drops Pair to Scranton at Home

HUNTINGDON, Pa. – Weathering near freezing temperatures, the Juniata College baseball team fought two tough battles to open home and league play Sunday as they faced the University of Scranton in a doubleheader.   Juniata (3-10) fell 13-12 in game one and 13-9 in game two against the Royals. They are now 0-2 against Landmark Conference opponents.

With weather changes, both games were only supposed to go seven innings, but game one went to nine.  The team's total runs were the highest single-game numbers for the Eagles this year. 

Junior Joe Sforza (Pittstown, N.J./Immaculata) hit .571 on the day after going 4-for-7 with a double and two RBI.  He ended the day with a .714 slugging percentage.  Fellow junior Derek Heath (Huntingdon, Pa./Huntingdon) had a team best .667 on base percentage.  He went 2-for-5 and scored three runs.

Game One
Juniata jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the second inning.  Scranton responded with two runs in the third, but both team's offenses then fell silent.  Sforza pitched five innings giving up three hits and striking out four.  He was relieved before the start of the sixth inning and the Royals took advantage of the fresh face, racking up a crushing eight runs in the inning to take a 12-6 lead. 

Juniata strung together hits in the bottom of the inning and earned two runs before heading into what was supposed to be the games final inning, down 12-8.  The defense stepped up and held Scranton scoreless in the top of the seventh to keep the score manageable.  Christopher Rom came in to close for Royals and the Juniata's bats pounced on the change of pace.  Hit after hit brought runners around until the Eagles had tied the score at 12-all.  Rom only lasted 2/3 of the inning before Josh Bayzick replaced him and got the final out.

It was a defensive battle until Scranton earned the eventual gamewinner with one out in the top of the ninth. 

Game Two
The Eagles were up 4-3 after three innings in game two.  But Scranton took the lead in the fourth inning and never released it.  They led by as many as five (9-4) in fifth.  Juniata did claw back to within one (10-9) after the sixth inning.  The Royals put three more across in the top of the seventh to secure the win as James Sawyer pitched 1.1 scoreless innings to earn the save.

Juniata hits the road next to take on Gettysburg Wednesday, March 20 at 3:30 p.m. in a single game matchup.  The Eagles are 10-15 all-time against Gettysburg, 0-1 under head coach Jesse Leonard.  This will be his second time seeing the Bullets.  Juniata fell to Gettysburg 9-4 last season.

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