Junior center fielder Phil Vaughn was 4-for-4 with an inside-the-park home run, two runs and two RBIs, but Maryland Eastern Shore baseball team fell, 9-8 and 4-0, to Saint Peter's in a doubleheader at Cochrane Stadium Wednesday.
The Hawks, who dropped to 8-25 overall, held three separate leads in the game one and got a quality outing for senior left-hander Brian White in game two. White (0-4) took the loss but deserved a better fate. He went all six innings, allowed two earned runs on 10 hits while striking out five and walking two.
Craig Hughes (1-2) tossed a complete-game shutout of his own for SPC, scattering just four hits and striking out seven.
Vaughn led off game one with his inside-the-park homer to left, the second in two seasons at UMES for the speedster, to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
Freshman lefty John DesChamps faced just one batter over the minimum through two innings. The Peacocks knotted the game at 1 in the third when Conor Mullee grounded into a bases-loaded double play to shortstop.
UMES retook the lead in the fourth, 2-1, when Franklin Armstrong delivered an RBI single to right, scoring Pat Hercinger from second.
St. Peter's (8-22) answered with three in its half of the inning thanks to three run-scoring extra-base hits from John Lynch, Mike McGuire and Andrew Martirano for a 4-2 advantage.
In the top of the fifth, the Hawks tallied four more to spell the end of the day for St. Peter's starter Dom Macaluso. Remo Orsini knocked an RBI triple to center with one out, plating Elliott Alston followed by a Vaughn RBI single to make it 4-4.Josh Dunhamand Hercinger also had RBI singles in the frame.
The seesaw battle continued as the Peacocks pushed across three runs to take a7-6 lead in the bottom of the inning. DesChamps was lifted for Cameron Zimmerman when he gave up a ground-rule double to left-center field to cut the lead to 6-5.
Zimmerman (3-5), who was saddled with the loss, had his first pitch served into center field for a two-RBI single.
The Hawks' hot hitting continued when Dunham provided UMES its final lead on the game with a two-out, two-RBI single to third base.
Mullee, though, tripled to right center in the sixth to tie things at 8 and Brian Koster put the hosts ahead for good with, bringing in Mullee with a single.
Miguel Sosa (1-2) earned the win with 2.2 innings in relief. He gave up four hits and two runs with a walk and two strikeouts.
DesChamps took a no decision with 4.1 innings of work and seven runs.
The Hawks had 14 hits in the game one loss while five players had at least two each. Dunham, Hercinger and Alston all went 2-for-4, respectively.
Back-to-back doubles by Koster and Garrett Duross gave Saint Peter's a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning of game two, a score that stood until the fourth when the Peacocks added another single run off White.
SPC extended the lead with two more in the sixth for the final margin.
The Hawks continues their season-long seven-game road trip with a three-game set at North Carolina A&T Friday and Saturday. The MEAC series begins with a doubleheader at noon.