GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Bullets scored a pair of go-ahead runs in the bottom of the seventh and Gettysburg defeated Penn State-Harrisburg 4-2 in a non-conference baseball game Tuesday afternoon at Kirchhoff Field.
Junior Pat Cody led Gettysburg (21-11) at the plate, going 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI while sophomore Nate Simon was 2-for-4 with an RBI-double that tied the game in the sixth. Sophomore Austin Davis also collected a pair of hits.
Tossing three innings of relief, junior John Donovan earned the win, allowing just one run on three hits and three walks while striking out a pair. Sophomore Rob Stalzer worked two shutout innings while yielding only a pair of hits and fanning three to earn his first collegiate save.
Daniel Samick (0-2) went the distance on the mound, giving up nine hits and three walks for Penn State-Harrisburg (9-30) while Dalton Trolinger and Colton Houseal each picked up two hits.
The Lions took a 1-0 lead in the fourth, when Jeff Bell and Isaac Polinsky led off with back-to-back doubles against Gettysburg starter Chris Yoda, who worked out of the jam by getting three consecutive ground-ball outs.
The Bullets pulled even in the bottom of the inning on a pair of infield singles from Cody and freshman Scott Zanghellini.
Yoda left after four innings, allowing only one run on two hits and two walks. He struck out two.
Harrisburg went on back on top in the fifth, when No. 9 hitter Dean Kanganis worked a lead-off walk against Donovan (3-0), stole second, and scored on a single to right by Houseal.
Gettysburg tied it again in the sixth when Cody reached on an error leading off before moving to second on the thrown-away infield grounder to short. He scored on a Simon's double, a drive into the left-center gap. But he was left at second when Samick got the final two outs of the inning.
A superb defensive play and a baserunning mistake moved to be crucial in the top of the seventh. With one out, Trolinger and Houseal reached on back-to-back singles, then moved to second and third on a wild pitch. Cleanup hitter Jeff Bell then lifted a sinking liner to left-center, where Patrick O'Grady raced in to make a diving catch. Trolinger was then called out at third for leaving the base early while tagging up, ending the inning.
Davis and freshman Cory Karagjozi reached on consecutive one-out singles in the seventh, and Davis went on to score the go-ahead from third when sophomore Al Posch beat out a double-play ball to short. The Bullets added an insurance run when Posch stole second and scored on Cody's ringing single to right.
Stalzer struck out the first two batters he faced in the eighth before two runners reached on a single and a hit batsman. But he induced a grounder to end the inning. He also allowed a one-out single in the ninth but retired the final two batters for Gettysburg's fourth save of the year, the team's most since the 2009 squad also had four.
Gettysburg continues its three-day, three-game stretch when it visits Juniata College on Wednesday in another non-conference tilt beginning at 3:30 p.m.