SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. -- The Grove City College baseball team swept a Presidents' Athletic Conference doubleheader Saturday afternoon from visiting Franciscan at Slippery Rock University's Jack Critchfield Park. Grove City won the opener, 13-7, then blanked the Barons in the nightcap, 11-0. 

Grove City is now 28-8 overall and 15-3 in the conference. The 28 wins matches the program's single-season record, first set in 2019. The Wolverines are tied atop the league with Washington & Jefferson in the race for the regular season title and the top seed in the season-ending conference tournament. 

Grove City pounded out 18 hits in the opener as the top four men in the lineup all had three or more hits. Freshman center fielder Nick Sampson (Venetia, Pa./Peters Township) went 4 for 4 with a triple and four runs scored while sophomore third baseman Mally Kilbane (Olmsted Falls, Ohio/Olmsted Falls) went 4 for 4 with a triple and three runs scored. 

Sophomore right fielder Josh Minnich (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) tripled, doubled, singled and drove in five runs while sophomore shortstop Luke Vittone (Seven Fields, Pa./Eden Christian) tripled, doubled, singled and scored three runs. 

Senior catcher C.J. Saylor (Lancaster, Pa./Hempfield) doubled and singled while freshman left fielder Andrew Seest (Fort Collins, Colo./Fort Collins) added a double. 

The Wolverines jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning as Minnich and Sampson both had run-scoring singles while Saylor followed with a double that scored Minnich. Vittone gave Grove City a 4-0 lead in the second by tripling in junior second baseman Lucca Baccari (Irwin, Pa./Penn-Trafford). Sampson followed with a triple that scored Vittone while a Minnich double plated Sampson. Kilbane scored the fourth run of the inning on Saylor's groundout.

Kilbane cracked a two-run triple in the sixth inning while Minnich belted a two-run triple in the eighth inning. 

Sophomore pitcher David Leslie (Butler, Pa./Butler) struck out six men and allowed no earned runs over seven innings to earn the win. Leslie (6-2) allowed four hits. Junior Christian Hoffmann (Venetia, Pa./Peters Township) and senior Robby Randolph (Cranberry Township, Pa./North Catholic) both pitched in relief. Randolph retired all four batters faced to record his first collegiate save after Franciscan pulled to within 10-7 in the eighth inning. 

Sophomore Isaiah Zuchowski (Barneveld, N.Y./Poland) earned the victory in Game Two by throwing a career-best six shutout innings. Zuchowski struck out four and walked one while earning his first win of the season. Senior Noah Cyphert (Kittanning, Pa./Armstrong) closed out the win by striking out two men in a scoreless seventh.

Saylor tripled and singled while Vittone recorded a double and single in the nightcap. Sampson went 2 for 4. Kilbane walked four times and scored three runs. 

Minnich's run-scoring single and an error gave Grove City a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Grove City broke open the game with a six-run third inning that featured five singles. Saylor roped a two-run single while Vittone and sophomore DH Shane Cato (New Castle, Pa./Shenango) also singled in runs. 

In the fourth inning, Saylor drove in Kilbane with a triple, then came home when junior first baseman Markus Williams (Sewickley, Pa./Eden Christian) lined a sacrifice fly to center. Sampson's fifth-inning single scored Vittone with Grove City's final run.

Saylor now has a Grove City-record seven triples this year. He leads the conference with 48 runs batted in. That is the fourth-highest total in program history. 

Randolph is the fifth different Grove City pitcher to record a save this year. Leslie and sophomore Evan Umland (Pasadena, Calif./La Canada) both have three saves. Cyphert and Zuchowski both have one save each. Leslie has a 1.24 earned run average in six conference starts.

The 2021 and 2022 Grove City teams also won 28 games. The 2023 Wolverines will aim for win No. 29 Monday at Hiram. The non-conference game will start at 4:30 p.m.