MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – The Manhattanville baseball team fell in its final game of its spring break trip at the Ripken Experience to the Penn State-Harrisburg Nittany Lions by the score of 4-3. Sophomore Kevin Brady (Bronx, N.Y./Fordham Prep) collected a pair of hits, while senior Sean Ferguson (Astoria, N.Y./Xavier) drove in two of the Valiants three runs in the losing effort.
With the Valiants as the home team, they sent senior Don Fisher (Wappingers Falls, N.Y./Roy C. Ketcham) to the mound for his first appearance of the season. Fisher got through the first two innings while allowing just one walk in the process. In the top of the third, Fisher retired the first two batters but allowed three straight hits as the Nittany Lions jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
The next half-inning, Manhattanville trimmed the lead in half as sophomore T.J. Hewett (Wethersfield, Conn./Wethersfield) walked and moved up to second on a balk by Penn State-Harrisburg starter Jim Klingerman. Ferguson laced a singled down the left field line to chase around Hewett and make the score 2-1.
Penn State-Harrisburg added two more runs in the top of the fourth inning as Cole Nye launched a two-run home run to right field to increase the Nittany Lion lead to 4-1. Fisher settled down and hung up three more zeroes to send the game to the bottom of the seventh inning.
In the bottom of the seventh, senior co-captain Raul Rodriguez (Bronx, N.Y./DeWitt Clinton) drew a walk, followed by fellow captain Johnny LoVetere (Southbury, Conn./Canterbury) reaching on an error. Hewett moved the pair along with a bunt to bring up Brady, who singled to centerfield to score Rodriguez and knock Klingerman out of the game in the process. Ferguson took advantage of a new pitcher on the mound and picked up an RBI on a sacrifice fly to pull the Valiants within one.
Daniel Samick continued to pitch the remainder of the game for Penn-State Harrisburg, as did Fisher for the Valiants who finished the game pitching all nine innings. Fisher became the first starter to complete a nine-inning game since the season-opener against Alma in Myrtle Beach a season ago, the last overall complete game was completed by then-freshman Michael Lyon (North Babylon, N.Y./North Babylon) in a seven-inning variety against DeSales at the end of last season.
Picking up the win was Klingerman (1-0) after going 6 1/3 innings and allowing three runs on five hits. Suffering the loss was Fisher (0-1) after allowing four runs on eight hits in the complete game performance.
Manhattanville (2-4) will next return home for its home opener at Manhattanville Field on Saturday afternoon at 12 p.m. when the team plays a doubleheader against Oswego, live coverage of the game will be available on GoValiants.com. Penn-State-Harrisburg will take on two of Manhattanville's Freedom Conference rivals against Wilkes and Eastern to wrap-up the Nittany Lions' stay in Myrtle Beach.