WASHINGTON, Pa. -- The top-seeded Washington & Jefferson College baseball team scored six runs over the final three innings to pull away and claim its 14th conference title with a 10-2 victory over No. 4 Westminster College in the Presidents' Athletic Conference Baseball Championship Tournament title game Saturday afternoon.
The league's four-team, double-elimination championship tournament was held Thursday-Saturday, May 12-14 at Ross Memorial Park in Washington.
The conference championship is W&J's third straight and 10th overall for 20th year head coach Jeff Mountain.
W&J scratched out a pair of first inning runs. Junior Tyler Horvat (Irwin, Pa. | Penn-Trafford) led off the inning with a single and later scored on an RBI double by senior Peter Kalinski (Washington, Pa. | Saint John's College). After a base hit, senior Nate Rush (Wheeling, W.Va. | The Linsly School) scored on an RBI groundout by junior Evan Sante (Pittsburgh, Pa. | Plum).
Horvat drove in W&J's third run in the second on an RBI groundout that scored freshman Jacob DeLuca (Clarence, N.Y. | Canisius) after he led off the inning with a double.
Sophomore Joe Lehner's (Painesville, Ohio | Lake Catholic) two-out, RBI single plated junior Trevor Dean (San Diego, Calif. | Rancho Bernardo) to extend the W&J lead to 4-0 in the third.
Brandon Cooper roped a two-out, two-run double for Westminster in the third to cut the deficit to 4-2. The Titans threatened to trim the Presidents lead even further in the bottom of the sixth inning. Cooper led off with a double in front of a walk that put two runners on with no outs. However, senior Jameson Campbell (Painesville, Ohio/Painesville Riverside) worked out of the jam by retiring the next three batters.
Sophomore Roman Samson (Tampa, Fla. | Berkeley Prep.) and Dean smacked back-to-back solo runs in the seventh that pushed W&J's lead to four, 6-2. It was Samson's ninth home run of the season. Kalinski and Sante had back-to-back two-run doubles in the eighth to extend the lead to 10-2.
Campbell improved to 10-1 with the win, allowing two runs (2 earned) on six hits with seven strikeouts and four walks in 6.0 innings pitched. Ethan Marzsalek (Katy, Texas/Seven Lakes) recorded three strikeouts in a scoreless seventh. Shane Fox (Valencia, Pa./Mars Area) and Kamden Kautz (Oro Valley, Ariz./Ironwood Ridge) worked scoreless eighth and ninth innings, respectively.
W&J racked up 15 hits in the Game F win. Seven of the hits went for extra bases. Horvat went 3-for-6 with an RBI and two runs scored. Kalinski and Sante had three RBIs each. Senior Jason Gregovits (Avon Lake, Ohio | Avon Lake) was voted the Tournament's Most Outstanding Player. He hit .417 with a double, two triples, two RBIs and four runs scored.
Joining Gregovits on the PAC All-Tournament Team was Horvat, Dean and freshman Jacob LaDuca (Clarence, N.Y./Canisius).
W&J (35-8) earned its spot in Saturday's title round with a 5-4 victory over No. 3 Grove City College (28-14) to open play Friday. Westminster (24-19) secured an 8-2 victory over No. 2 Saint Vincent College (24-14) in Friday's first elimination game before registering a 10-7 win over Grove City (28-10) in the second elimination game.
W&J was making its 11th-straight appearance in the tournament's title round. Saturday was Westminster's first title round appearance since winning its second PAC title in 2012. This is the third-straight season that the No. 1 and the No. 4 seeds met in the championship tournament's title round.
As the PAC Championship Tournament winner, W&J has earned the conference's automatic qualifying bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. W&J will be making its ninth appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Selections for the Division III Championship are scheduled to be announced Monday, May 16 with regional preliminary round play slated for Friday-Monday, May 20-22. Regional champions will compete in the Super Regionals, a best-of-three series, to determine the eight participants in this year's Division III College World Series, scheduled for Friday-Wednesday, June 3-8. The Division III College World Series will be held at Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.