BALTIMORE, MD - Jumping out to an early 3-0 lead in the first, the Johns Hopkins baseball team rolled to a 6-2 victory over visiting McDaniel in the opening round of the 2012 Centennial Conference championship tournament.
The top-seeded Blue Jays will face #2 Haverford in the third game of the tournament at approximately 12:30 pm at the JHU Baseball Diamond. Haverford defeated #3 Washington College in the other opening round game, 3-2, to send the Shoremen to the first elimination game against McDaniel at 9 am Saturday.
Junior Kyle Neverman welcomed the Green Terror starting pitcher Zach Jones roping a ball to right center for a stand up double on the first pitch of the game for Jones. Classmate Mike Kanen singled to right field before senior Aaron Borenstein got hit by a pitch to load the bases for the Jays. Junior Jeff Lynch collected his first hit of the ball game with a single to right to score Neverman and move all the runners up a base. Classmate Ryan Zakszeski kept the hit parade going for the Jays with a single down the left field line that brought around Kanen all before the Green Terror could get an out. With one out, sophomore Richie Carbone was the second Blue Jay to be hit by a pitch in the inning, this time with the bases loaded to bring home Borenstein and give the Blue Jays a 3-0 lead after one full inning.
Senior Blue Jay starter Alex Eliopoulos had to work himself out of trouble in the second and third innings, but came away unscathed. In the top of the second, the first two Green Terror batters reached base before Eliopoulos got Dan French to go down swinging for the first out. After a ground ball fielder's choice out at second put runners on the corners with two outs, the senior got his second punch out of the frame getting Brandon Hayward to swing through the third strike.
In the top of the third, once again the first two batters reached base against Eliopoulos, but the right hander remained composed and after two strikeouts, got Marshall Betts to fly out to Carbone in center for the third and final out of the frame.
Hopkins tacked on another run in each of the fourth and fifth innings to take a 5-0 lead. With one out in the bottom of the fourth, Borenstein legged out his first triple of the season on a hard hit ball to straight way center and came around to score on a single down the left field line from Lynch. Junior Chris Vonderschmidt put the Jays up 5-0 with his first home run of the season on a deep fly ball over the right center fence after working the count full.
With two runners on and two outs in the top of the seventh, Mike Freeman broke up Eliopoulos' shutout with an RBI single down the left field line. Senior Blake Platt came out in relief and did what he does best, got the one and only batter he faced to ground out to third and leave two runners stranded. Platt has now appeared in 20 games for the Jays this season, tying former Blue Jay Andrew Pesvner's single season record while making his 55th appearance in his career to break Pesvner's career record for JHU.
Hopkins answered with a run of its own in the bottom of the seventh to push the lead to 6-1. Vonderschmidt reached on an infield single to second before stealing second base to move into scoring position for Neverman. The shortstop looped a single to right field to bring home Vonderschmidt and cap the Blue Jay scoring for the afternoon.
Senior closer Aaron Schwartz came out in relief of Platt in the top of the eighth and set the Green Terror down quickly, needing just six pitches for a perfect 1-2-3 inning. McDaniel did get one back in the top of the ninth on a sacrifice fly from Jimmy Najera that scored Taylor Jackow, but Schwartz got Jame Chiorello to pop up to Neverman at short stop to close out the game for the Jays.
Eliopoulos got the win on the hill for the Blue Jays improving to 8-1 on the season, going 6.2 innings, giving up just one run on eight hits and four walks while striking out seven Green Terror. Jones suffered the loss for McDaniel, slipping to 4-3 on the year after giving up six runs, all earned, on 12 hits and three walks while hitting four batters. Jones struck out just three.
Lynch led the Blue Jays at the plate, going 3-for-4 with two RBI and a double while Vonderschmidt went 3-for-4 with an RBI, two runs scored and a home run.
Hopkins will play Haverford at 12:30 pm in the winners bracket tomorrow afternoon, while Washington and McDaniel will square off in Baltimore, MD in the first elimination game at 9 am.