Maryland Eastern Shore baseball team staged a five- run ninth-inning comeback attempt but it fell short in an 11-9 defeat to Mount Saint Mary's at Straw Family Stadium Wednesday.
Down 11-4 entering the bottom of the ninth, UMES (2-25) whittled the hosts' lead down but ran out of outs in the final frame. Junior Elliott Alston led the inning off with a solo home run to left field to make it an 11-5 game and extend his team-leading hitting streak to eight games. MSM relief pitcher Patrick Moriarty then walked Bryan Chaikowsky and hit Nick Wiggins to set the table for a Donnie Haines two-run triple to center, given up by the second pitcher of the inning, Mike Matta.
Then, with one out Tony Gonzales bounced one to the right side of the infield to pick up Haines from third and cut it to a three-run game. Phil Vaughn kept the inning going with a single, stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error before J.J.
Corriveau singled home what would be the final run of the game.
Five Hawks had multiple-hit games, leading to a season-high 17 knocks for UMES. Vaughn was 4-for-6 with a run scored and hits 13th stolen base, while Gonzales went 3-for-5 with two runs and an RBI. Chaikowsky chipped in with a 2-for-3 effort with a pair of runs and walks and Corriveau and Luis Mena also had two hits apiece.
Mount Saint Mary's (11-13), which scored in all but the fifth and eighth innings and jumped out to 9-0 advantage and held on. The Mount got three hits each from Jake Darr and Josh Winter and a home run from Andrew Caron to lead its offensive attack
The Mount got on the board first with four runs in the bottom of the first. The big blow in the inning came from Caron with a two-run blast to left with two outs. Tom Healy and Winter also added an RBI double and triple, respectively off of Hawks' starter Matt Witte.
Mount Saint Mary's made it a six-run game with two more in the second with the help of a pair of Witte throwing errors.
Down 9-0 in the top of the fifth, UMES got on the scoreboard with a run that scored on a throwing error by Darr at shortstop. Gonzales singled to short with one out and moved to second on a wild pitch by MSM's starter Buddy Fields. Vaughn then beat out a roller to third for a hit and Corriveau reached on the error, scoring Gonzales.
Wiggins blasted his first career home run to left field, a two-run shot, in the sixth to cut the deficit to six at 9-3. Chaikowsky started the frame with a single through the right side. The Hawks tallied two more move base hits in the inning but couldn't push any more runs across.
The Mount scored single runs in the six and seventh innings which proved to be enough to ensure the win on a fielder's choice and sacrifice fly, respectively.
Witte (1-4) took the loss, pitching the first two innings. He surrendered 10 hits and eight runs (seven earned). Fields improved to 1-1 with the win, going five and giving up just one unearned run. He scattered five hits, struck out six and walked one.
UMES next travels to Norfolk State for a three-game series starting Saturday with a doubleheader at 1 p.m.