SCRANTON, Pa. – The University of Scranton baseball team (29-11) captured a pair of Landmark Conference Tournament victories on Saturday with wins over Catholic (25-5) and Elizabethtown (7-3) to advance to Sunday's conference championship game at 10:30 a.m.
Scranton will take on the winner of an elimination game between the Cardinals (31-11) and Blue Jays (30-11) on Sunday with one of those teams needing to beat the Royals twice in order to capture the Landmark title.
With the two victories on Saturday, the Royals have set a new single-season program record with 29 victories that surpassed the previous record of 28 from the 2022 season.
Scranton 25, Catholic 5
The Royals took the lead for good with a five-run third inning and never looked back en route to the 25-5 win over the Cardinals.
The game originally started on Friday night and was suspended in the bottom of the eighth inning with Scranton leading 21-4 due to the conference's midnight curfew rule.
Scranton's 25 runs are the most the team has scored since a 29-11 victory over Marywood on Mar. 26, 2019.
In the five-run third inning, the game was tied at three apiece when senior Nick Reposa (Factoryville, Pa./Tunkhannock) stepped to the plate with two runners on and two away and raced home on an error charged to Catholic RF Logan Eilbacher. The ball caromed off Eilbacher's glove and rolled all the way to the wall which cleared the bases and also allowed Reposa to score for a 6-3 lead.
Fellow senior Jack Heineman (Abington, Pa./LaSalle College) tacked on a two-run double in the fourth inning which extended the advantage to 8-3.
Catholic's Roman Tozzi, who entered the game as the Landmark leader in ERA, was dealt the loss after allowing five runs (three earned) on four hits to go along with four walks and five strikeouts over 2 2/3 IP.
The Cardinals had scored three in the first inning including a two-run single from Jesse Lacefield before the Royals were able to rally.
Graduate student right-hander Daniel Johnson (Whitehouse Station, N.J./Immaculata) got the start for Scranton and gave up four runs on four hits while walking five and fanning six in 4 1/3 IP.
Senior lefty Jason Carpenter (Scranton, Pa./Scranton) earned the win in relief as he allowed one hit and struck out a pair over 1 2/3 shutout innings. Senior righty George Sengos (Washington Twp., N.J./Westwood Regional) followed Carpenter and struck out one in a scoreless frame.
A three-run fifth inning saw senior John Zarnowski (East Brunswick, N.J./St. Joseph's) knock in a pair with a two-run double and sophomore Vincent Napolitano (Merrick, N.Y./Kellenberg Memorial) added an RBI single to make it an 11-3 game.
Head coach Mike Bartoletti's team then scored seven in the sixth including a bases-clearing three-run double off the bat of sophomore Conor Campbell (Wilmington, Del./Salesianum). Heineman and fellow sophomore Aidan Casey (Silver Beach, N.J./Don Bosco Prep) each added RBI singles in the frame.
Casey then notched an RBI infield single in the seventh inning as the Royals scored a season-high 25 runs.
Six different players tallied multi-hit games for Scranton led by Casey who set new career-highs with four hits and four runs scored. Heineman drove in four runs, while Napolitano and Zarnowski tallied three hits apiece.
Scranton 7, Elizabethtown 3
Junior Jake Elston (New Milford, N.J./Canterbury School) broke the game open with an inside-the-park grand slam and graduate student righty Hunter Ralston (Duryea, Pa./Pittston Area) tossed a complete game as the Royals notched the 7-3 victory over the Blue Jays in Saturday's second game.
Scranton led 3-1 in the ninth when Elston came up with the bases loaded and two outs and drove a ball off the wall in right centerfield for his fourth home run of the season.
Ralston tossed his second complete game of the season as he gave up three runs (two earned) on five hits to go along with a walk and seven strikeouts on 116 pitches.
Nicholas Ortega was dealt the loss for the Blue Jays after being charged with six runs on seven hits while walking four and fanning five over 8 2/3 IP.
The game was scoreless until the fifth inning when ETown got a leadoff double from Bryce Keller and he later scored on Garrett Schwartzbeck's sac fly.
From there, the Royals quickly responded in the top of the sixth as a walk, a single and a bunt single loaded the bases with nobody out to set the stage for Zarnowski's RBI groundout and Napolitano's sac fly that made it a 2-1 game.
Scranton tacked on an insurance run in the eighth inning as Elston drew a one-out walk, took second on a groundout and scored on Zarnowski's two-out RBI single.
Following Elston's grand slam in the top of the ninth, the Blue Jays were able to get a pair back in the home half that cut the lead to 7-3 but Ralston got pinch-hitter Riley Thomas to ground to second and end the game.
Elston (2-3, HR, 4 RBI, 3 R) registered a multi-hit game for the Royals and Reposa added a hit, two walks and two runs scored.
--ROYALS--
