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4/23/2022 | 12 p.m
Apr. 23 (Sat) / 12 pm
Bucknell
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BETHLEHEM, Pa. – In the final game of the season series with Lafayette, the Lehigh baseball team put together a big offensive effort with five players tallying multi-hit performances as the Mountain Hawks (18-18, 6-9 PL) topped the Leopards (12- 27, 7-8 PL), 7-4 Wednesday afternoon at J. David Walker Field in The Rivalry presented by Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute.
Casey Rother, Gerard Sweeney, Riley Davis, Tyler Young and Andrew Nole each went 2-for-4 in the win, while Jake Whitlinger, Joe Gorla and Austin Dambach also registered knocks.
Junior right-hander Carlos Torres (2-1) set the tone with his pitching performance, going 5.1 innings and allowing one run on four hits with five strikeouts and a walk, earning his second victory of the season. Replacing Tyler Thompson on the mound, Nick Pave shoved the final two frames, striking out two batters to earn his fourth save of the season.
“Carlos [Torres] Certainly set the tone for us today,” said head coach Sean Leary. “We needed someone to give us some length in the game because we had a couple extra inning games over the weekend. He was the man of the hour and he answered the call. That was a big start and I thought Tyler Thompson did a good job of working out of a jam and then Nick [Pave] picked him up. With where we were, that was a huge performance by our entire staff today.”
Lehigh scored the first three runs of the contest and led things off with Rother’s sacrifice-fly to center field in the bottom of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the second, Nole ripped a single down the right field line, scoring Sweeney to extend the lead to 2-0.
In the fifth, Rother singled to left field and scored Dambach to get out to a 3-0 cushion.
Lafayette finally got into the run column in the sixth inning on Justin Grech’s fielder’s choice, cutting into the 3-1 Lehigh lead.
In the bottom of the inning, two more scored on Nole’s RBI single up the middle and Whitlinger’s RBI double to left field. The Mountain Hawks tackled on another run in the seventh on Young’s RBI single to center field to make it 7-1.
The Leopards scored thrice in the eighth, but Lehigh prevailed 7-4.
“We had contributions up and down the lineup today,” Leary said. “We were getting guys on base early in the game whether it was Austin [Dambach] starting off an inning or whether it was two-out hits from Young. But I thought a lot of our energy today was driven by Riley [Davis]’play again, just coming back into the lineup and playing the way he did. It’s hard to take two weeks off and just jump in and pick up where he left off. It was a big lift for us to have another guy in the lineup that can contribute for us offensively.”
Lehigh, who gained ground with his sixth Patriot League win of the year against Lafayette, will head to Lewisburg to face Bucknell this weekend with two games Saturday at DePew Field starting at noon and a single game at noon Sunday, which will be streamed live on ESPN+ (subscription required).
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Gallery: (4-21-2022) Baseball vs. Lafayette, 4/20/22
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