CHAMPS! Baseball Holds Off Late ETown Rally to Capture First Landmark Title

The top-seeded University of Scranton baseball team (20-9) held off a couple of late Elizabethtown rallies and captured the program's first Landmark Conference title with a 6-3 victory over the No. 3 seed Blue Jays (17-11) in the decisive game three on Sunday afternoon at Volpe Field. The team will compete in the Collegeville, Minnesota Regional hosted by Saint John's University beginning on Thursday.

The Royals are headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history and will find out where they are headed for regional play later on tonight. Stay tuned to athletics.scranton.edu for more information as it becomes available.

Junior Tyler Kirsten was 4-5 with an RBI and two runs scored on the afternoon and earned MVP honors for Scranton. On the weekend, Kirsten went 6-14 with a triple, three RBI and two runs scored in three games.

Trailing 6-3, the Blue Jays brought the tying run to the plate with two runners on and two outs in the ninth, but junior southpaw Ryan Heiser got Tyler McGonigle to ground to Kirsten at short and the celebration ensued for the Royals.

Scranton added two key insurance runs in the home half of the eighth as freshman Corey Zientek tripled off the wall in left center and scored on a balk and sophomore Justin Pinckert plated Kirsten with an RBI single to make it 6-3.

The insurance runs came on the heels of an ETown threat in the top of the inning with the tying run at third and two outs in a 4-3 game before freshman right-hander George Sengos got Robbie Bertuccio to fly to right and end the threat.

Junior righty Josh Lydon earned the win for the Royals after giving up two runs on seven hits while fanning a pair over six innings of work. The trio of senior righty Matt Morrow, Sengos and Heiser combined to close things out in relief.

Kelly Holdren surrendered four runs (one earned) on seven hits to go along with five walks and eight strikeouts in six-plus innings and took the loss for the Blue Jays. The earned run allowed by Holdren in the sixth inning was the first he had allowed this season.

ETown struck first with a run in the top of the second, but the Royals took the lead for good with three two-out runs in the third. A single and a walk put two men on before an error by McGonigle at short allowed the tying run to score and set the stage for consecutive RBI singles from junior Jake Lisicky and senior Kevin Johnson.

McGonigle knocked in a run with an RBI groundout in the sixth to cut the lead to 3-2 for the time being and Kirsten immediately answered for the Royals with a two-out RBI single in the home half of the frame. ETown cut the lead to 4-3 with an RBI single in the top of the seventh.

Kirsten matched his career-high with four hits in the win and Pinckert added a hit, RBI, two walks and a run scored.

Get the latest at athletics.scranton.edu.