PITTSBURGH, Pa. - The Pitt-Bradford baseball team's season came to end Saturday in the AMCC tournament semifinals against Penn State Behrend. The Panthers were edged, 5-4.
Pitt-Bradford trailed 4-1 entering the eighth inning, but Tim Brown swatted a three-run home run, his second long ball in as many days, to level the score.
Ryan Northcott relieved starter Matthew Hogue in the bottom half of the inning and promptly served up a leadoff walk. Pinch-runner Holden Stevanus moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and stole third base. He scored moments later on Ryan Hamm's fly ball to left field.
The Panthers' Brock Blovsky led off the top of the ninth with a base hit, but Penn State Behrend's Scott Sada retired the next three batters in a row to save the game. Sada entered in the eighth inning with go-ahead run at first, and after walking the first batter he faced, struck out Tyler Hoops to keep the game tied.
Pitt-Bradford fell behind early, yet starter Matthew Hogue battled to keep the Panthers in the game. The Lions got to Hogue for three runs in the second and another in the fifth, but the lefthander yielded just two hits over his final two innings of work. For the game, Hogue gave up eight hits, four runs, one earned, while walking three and striking out three.
Lions' starter Jack Herzing stymied the Panther offense, limiting the Blue and Gold to only four hits over the first 7.2 innings. Dalton Renn accounted for Pitt-Bradford's only run in the early going, a RBI groundout in the third.
Renn led off the eighth with a double but was thrown out when attempting to stretch it into a triple. After Jay Clinger struck out, Austin Parent walked and Brody Wood was hit by a pitch, setting the stage for Brown's blast.
Pitt-Bradford advanced to the tournament semifinals by defeating Mt. Aloysius early Saturday morning, 9-7, in an elimination game.
Ryan Boyer and Brown were named to the all-tournament team. Boyer earned the win against Mt. Aloysius and also pitched the Panthers to a series-clinching victory over Penn State Altoona in the first-round. In six tournament games, Brown hit .560 with two doubles, two home runs, and 13 RBIs.
Pitt-Bradford finishes the season at 16-25 under first-year head coach Zach Foster.
