GRANVILLE, Ohio – The seventh-ranked Salisbury University baseball team advanced to the final day of the Granville Regional by splitting a pair of games on Sunday afternoon at Big Red Baseball Field. The Sea Gulls fell to the 13th-ranked Denison Big Red, 2-0, before rebounding to crush the William Paterson Pioneers, 17-3.

BOX SCORE vs. DENISON

BOX SCORE vs. WILLIAM PATERSON

HOW IT HAPPENED

• The Big Red struck the decisive blow in the second inning. Jake Welsch led off with a single and Charlie Glennon followed with a sac bunt-turned-error by the pitcher. After a strikeout and a groundout that advanced the runners, Owen Wilson tagged a two-run single into right center to put DU on top 2-0.
• Salisbury starter Jackson Balzan settled down and gave up just one hit over the next five innings. He faced the minimum from the fourth through seventh.
• The Sea Gulls struggled to find their footing at the plate against Denison starter Kenny Lippman. Cameron Hyder's two-out double in the third served as SU's only hit in the first six innings.
• Stephen Rice singled to lead off the seventh, but Lippman struck out the next three batters in a row to cut off the would-be rally.
• In the eighth Zach Adams led off with a base hit and Trent Saunders took over as a pinch-runner at first, but Luke Weddell hit a line drive straight to Dylan Hunter at first base, who stepped on the bag to double off Saunders. Hyder then rolled out to first to cap the inning.
• Denison threatened to extend its lead with a pair of walks in the eighth, but Corey Burton stranded forced Ari Fierer to ground out to short to end the frame unscathed.
• Lippman would need no further support, though, retiring the Sea Gulls in order in the ninth to finish off the clean sheet in an even two hours.

SALISBURY GAME NOTES

• Cameron Hyder finished 1-for-4 with a double for the Sea Gulls' only extra-base hit of the game. Stephen Rice and Zach Adams each singled to account for the rest of Salisbury's three hits.
• Jackson Balzan (8-2) snapped a streak of eight straight winning decisions with a tough-luck loss. Balzan allowed two unearned runs on four hits in 7.2 innings, walking three and striking out five on 95 pitches.
• The shutout marks the first time the Sea Gulls failed to score a run in a game since May 3, 2019, when SU was blanked by Penn State Harrisburg, 5-0, in the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC, now Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference) Tournament.
• The loss snaps Salisbury's 10-game NCAA Tournament winning streak. SU went 9-0 in the 2021 tournament on the way to winning the national championship.

DENISON GAME NOTES

• Nine-hole hitter Owen Wilson provided all the offense the Big Red needed, going 1-for-1 with two walks and a two-run single.
• Jake Welsch finished 1-for-3 with a run scored, while Dylan Hunter's triple and Ari Fierer's single added up for DU's four hits.
• Kenny Lippman (7-1) twirled a three-hit shutout for his second complete game in the span of a week, walking one and punching out 13. Over his last two starts Lippman has fanned 27 and allowed just one run over 18 innings.

HOW IT HAPPENED vs. WILLIAM PATERSON

• It didn't take long for the Sea Gulls to revive their offensive stroke against the Pioneers. Patrick Campbell singled with one out in the top of the first, then after a walk to Kavi Caster, Stephen Rice rolled a base hit up the middle, scoring Campbell to put SU up 1-0.
• Back-to-back WPU errors put men on second and third with no out in the second, and Cameron Hyder and Campbell brought them each home on two straight RBI groundouts to make it 3-0. Caster restarted the rally with a two-out double, then Rice reached on the third Pioneer error of the inning to put men on the corners.
• Sky Rahill and Jacob Ference picked up back-to-back RBI base knocks, then after Scott Cameron was plunked to load the bases, Zach Geesaman pegged a two-run single into right center to make it 7-0.
• Cameron advanced to third on Geesaman's hit, and the two caught WPU napping by pulling off a straight double steal, allowing Cameron to score the inning's seventh run and make it an 8-0 Salisbury lead.
• The Pioneers answered in the bottom of the second. With a man on second and one out, Steve Yelin ripped an RBI triple and later scored on a Jake Lutz single, cutting the SU advantage to 8-2.
• The Sea Gulls got one run back in the third on a Campbell walk, Caster single and Rice sac fly to get it back to 9-2.
• In the fifth, Caster cracked a towering solo homer to right center, his 10th of the year, to put SU in double figures. Rice followed with a single and Rahill and Ference smacked back-to-back RBI doubles to make it 12-2.
• Caster blasted his 11th homer and second of the game in the sixth, a two-run shot that put SU up 14-2.
• Salisbury plated three more in the seventh on RBI singles by Trent Saunders and Ben Anderson, plus an error that allowed Saunders to score, making it 17-2.
• Justin Grippo's RBI double in the bottom of the seventh ended the Sea Gulls' 9-0 run and gave the game its final 17-3 margin.

SALISBURY GAME NOTES

• Kavi Caster continued his monster regional by going 4-for-4 with a double, two home runs, three RBIs and three runs scored. In his first three games in Granville, Caster boasts four extra-base hits, including three dingers, and seven rib-eyes.
• Caster now owns just the ninth double-digit homer season in Salisbury history and the first since Jack Barry went yard 12 times in 2017. His 11 home runs tie him with Jason Ewing (2002) for fifth in single-season program history.
• Sky Rahill went 2-for-6 with a double, two runs and two rib-eyes, while Jacob Ference also doubled and drove in two runs in a 2-for-4 day.
• Stephen Rice finished 3-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored.
• Benji Thalheimer (7-0) cruised behind the ample run support to stay undefeated on the year. Thalheimer gave up three runs on five hits over 6.1 innings, walking four and striking out three on 96 pitches.
• Brock Hilligoss got the final two outs of the seventh, while Justin McDermott put up a zero in the eighth and Mitchell Wittkamp did the same in the ninth.

WILLIAM PATERSON GAME NOTES

• Steven Yelin and Jake Lutz each went 2-for-4 with an extra-base hit, run and RBI. Yelin tripled and Lutz doubled.
• Justin Grippo finished 1-for-3 with a double and RBI.
• Matt Lawler (5-3) was saddled with the loss for the Pioneers, giving up 10 runs (three earned) on nine hits in 4.1 frames.

UP NEXT

• The Sea Gulls will face Denison in the championship round of the Granville Regional on Monday at 11 a.m.
• Salisbury has to win two games on Monday to advance to super regionals. An SU victory in the 11 a.m. game would force a winner-take-all contest at 2:30 p.m. to decide the regional championship.

Salisbury University is a proud member of NCAA Division III with primary membership in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference, along with the New Jersey Athletic Conference for football and the Metropolitan Swimming and Diving Conference for men's and women's swimming. With over 500 student-athletes in 21 varsity sports, SU is recognized as one of the most competitive intercollegiate athletics programs regardless of division, and dedicated coaches and staff that foster excellence on-and-off the field. The Sea Gulls have celebrated 22 team national championships, 24 individual national champions, 189 conference championships and 41 Academic All-Americans.

To learn more about the tradition of excellence with Sea Gull Athletics, visit www.SUSeaGulls.com or on social media @SUSeaGulls.