Auburndale, FL --- WPI ended up on the wrong side of a pair of close contests, falling twice to Mount Union in a baseball doubleheader on Wednesday morning.
The Engineers dropped a 5-3 decision in the first game of the day, while Mount Union (6-4) topped WPI 4-3 in the second seven-inning affair, despite a combined 5-7 day at the plate from WPI center fielder Tyrone Patterson (Upper Marlboro, MD).
WPI continues play at the RussMatt Invitational Friday with a 3:15pm doubleheader against Penn State Altoona.
Game 1: Mount Union 5, WPI 3
Patterson went 2-3 and scored twice for WPI, including an unearned run in the bottom of the first as the Engineers scored first for the fifth consecutive game.
The Raiders took the lead for good with a four-run third inning. Mount Union took advantage of two errors to score four runs with just the benefit of one hit. Two of those runs came in on a bases-loaded error in left field off the bat of right fielder Thomas Gallant (Pataskala, OH).
Martin McCormack (Quincy, MA) helped WPI inch closer with an RBI groundout to score Michael Fraser, but Mount Union answered back when Walker Marlowe (Berlin Center, OH) scored for the second time in the game on a double by Nate Duliba (Berea, OH).
Jordan DeDonato (Danvers, MA) drove in his team-leading fourth run of the year with his fourth double of the season in the bottom of the seventh. DeDonato plated Patterson who had doubled himself with one out in the inning, but the WPI comeback stalled from there.
Kyle Foley (Watertown, MA) threw a complete game for WPI, allowing four earned runs on five hits with two strikeouts.
Carson Davis (Louisville, OH) also went all seven innings for Mount Union, striking out four batters and giving up three runs, two of them earned, on seven hits.
Game 2: Mount Union 4, WPI 3
DeDonato hit a two-run homer in the top of the fourth, and WPI twice pulled back to within a run, but the Raiders got them to strand two runners in each of the last two frames.
Patterson was 3-4 and McCormack and Benjamin Chaffee (Franklin, MA) each had two hits, but Mount Union scored three times in the bottom of the first inning and never trailed.
Mount Union was led by a pair of RBI from Trey Weaver (Franklin, PA), who was 2-2. Weaver lifted a sacrifice fly in the first after Duliba got the Raiders on the board with an RBI single to right center.
Weaver singled home Duliba in the fourth to put WPI back ahead 4-2 after DeDonato's blast, his first of the year, which scored Patterson.
Patterson doubled home catcher TJ DellaCroce (Waxhaw, NC) in the fifth, but Mount Union got two and a third scoreless innings of relief out of Dylan Neider (Wooster, OH), who struck out four. Raiders' starter Dylan Eaton (Amherst, OH) struck out five of his own, with neither pitcher surrendering a walk.
Ryan Malkowski (Hubbardston, MA) suffered the loss for WPI after not being able to get out of the first inning. Matt Penkala (Warren, RI) struck out five in 3.2 innings of relief, while Keith Scales (Upper Marlboro, MD) and Nick Tagaris (New City, NY) each threw a scoreless inning out of the Engineer's bullpen.