Run-scoring hits in the sixth inning by Brayden Keller and Aidan Casey broke a tie game and helped send the University of Scranton on to a 7-2 victory over Bridgewater College (Va.) Friday morning in the first game of the NCAA Division III Regionals, hosted by Washington & Jefferson College at Ross Memorial Park in Washington. Pa.<\/p>\n
It is the first NCAA victory in program history for the Royals (29-15) and advances them to the winners\u2019 bracket of the double-elimination tournament.<\/p>\n
Bridgewater struck first in the bottom of the third inning to take a 1-0 lead. Scranton answered in the top of the fourth with a RBI single by Vincent Napolitano to tie the game at 1.<\/p>\n
Then, in the top of the sixth, Old Forge graduate Joey Granko led off with a single. Matthew Gannon sacrificed him to second and Keller scored him with a single to put the Royals in front 2-1. Keller was caught stealing for the second out of the inning. But Napolitano walked, moved to second on a wild pitch and came around on Casey\u2019s double to give Scranton a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
The Eagles closed to within 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh. But Napolitano delivered a RBI single in the top of the eighth to make it 4-2. The Royals then put the game away with three runs in the top of the ninth. John Heitzman doubled with two outs and scored on a single by Granko. After Gannon singled, Keller doubled to score both Granko and Gannon.<\/p>\n
Granko was 4 for 5 with one RBI and three runs. Heitzman, Keller and Napolitano added three hits each. Keller finished with three RBIs and Napolitano chipped in two RBIs.<\/p>\n
Starter John DeStefano went 6.1 innings and allowed two runs on eight hits with one walk and eight strikeouts to get the win for Scranton. Kieran Lodewick worked 1.2 scoreless innings with three hits and one strikeout. Logan Mason pitched a perfect ninth inning with two strikeouts to close it out.<\/p>\n
Scranton faces the University of Chicago (29-13) on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The Maroons beat host Washington & Jefferson in the other opening-round game Friday, 8-1.\u00a0A win would send the Royals into the championship game Sunday at 11 a.m. If they lose, they will have to play in the elimination bracket final Saturday at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Run-scoring hits in the sixth inning by Brayden Keller and Aidan Casey broke a tie game and helped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2300,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-193961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-college-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}