YORK, Pa. – No. 10/10 Shenandoah University has advanced in the 2017 York Regional with an 8-6 victory over Alvernia Saturday night.
The Hornets (39-9) survived to Sunday by jumping on Alvernia (30-15-2) for five runs in the first and then getting a solid performance out of relief pitchers Matt Burns, Steve Jones and Tyler Hott.
The win puts Shenandoah into a noon Sunday contest versus Johns Hopkins. The winner of that game will need two victories over Wheaton (Mass.) to win the regional title.
Jones (3-1) earned his second victory of the regional with 3.0 innings of relief work. Replacing Robert Klinchock with one out in the fourth, Jones allowed one run on five hits and four walks against two strikeouts in those three innings of action.
Matt Burns got an out against the only batter he faced before turning it over to closer Tyler Hott for the final seven outs of the game.
Hott recorded his program record 11 save by scattering one run on five hits and striking out three in his 2 1/3 innings of work.
Klinchock pitched the initial 3 1/3, giving up four runs (three earned) on four hits and one walk.
Shenandoah scored those five runs on five hits in the first with five of the first six hitters in the lineup reaching base. Tristan Baker got the frame started with a double down the left field line and scored on Abel Arocho's single up the middle.
For Arocho, the hit extended his hitting streak to 18 games.
Luke Nussman made it 3-0 with a two-run single back through the box before Cameron scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-0.
Nussman completed the inning's scoring by coming home on Christian Rice's groundout to short.
After Alvernia (30-15-2) made a game of it with two runs in the third and two more in the fourth, SU extended its lead back to three runs by scoring two runs on two hits and one Crusaders error in the fifth.
Rice, making his first start of the regional, drove in the first run of the frame with a single through the left side.
Abel Arocho had the other RBI by drawing a bases loaded walk.
The two teams traded single runs in the eighth to provide the final margin.
In the ninth, the Crusaders had runners on first and second with one out only to see Hott shut the door with a strikeout and a fly to left.
Arocho and Nussman both had two hits with Rice driving in a pair.