YORK, PA — The No. 4 seed RIT baseball team (33-8) had its 12-game winning streak snapped in an 8-4 loss to fifth-seeded Alvernia College (29-13-2) in the first round of the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional on Thursday at PeoplesBank Park.
 
Alvernia broke open a close game with four runs in the top of the sixth inning. RIT, ranked 24th in the most recent D3Baseball.com poll, rallied, but could not come all the way back from a seven-run deficit. 
 
"The game was close until we let up four runs in the sixth and that was the difference," said RIT head coach Rob Grow. "That hasn't really happened to us at all this year in the middle of the game, so we have to come back and play even harder on Friday."
 
Will Gorman (Nassau, NY/Columbia) broke his own single season home runs record with his ninth homer of the year, in the bottom of the ninth for the Tigers. He reached base four times, going 3-for-4 with a double, a walk and three runs scored. Gorman now has 49 runs scored on the season, shattering RIT's single-season record of 48, originally set by Matt George in 2008.
 
Brett Kajganich (North Royalton, OH/Holy Name) went 2-for-5 with a run scored and RBI, while Daniel Zeglen (Scotia, NY/Scotia-Glenville) also drove in a run. Dom Scialabba (North Brunswick, NJ/North Brunswick) reached base four times, hitting a double, while drawing three walks.
 
On the mound, Brian Reed (Rochester, NY/Penfield) made the start for RIT, going 5 2/3 innings, allowing seven runs (five earned) on nine hits, while striking out six batters. He took the loss, falling to 8-2 on the season. Brett Bouchard (Fairport, NY/Fairport), Kyle Povlock (Fairport, NY/Fairport), and Ben Clough (Tolland, CT/Tolland) all came on in relief for the final 3 1/3 innings.
 
For Alvernia, Matt Briner led the way with two RBIs, while four other batters had one RBI apiece. Five different players had a pair of hits each.

Ryan Sheekey got the start for the Crusaders, going six full innings and allowing just one run on seven hits, with five strikeouts, to pick up his fourth win of the year. Nicholas Marotta gave up a pair of unearned runs in 1 2/3 innings of relief, while Michael Griffin closed out the Tigers, allowing Gorman's solo homer in the ninth.
 
Alvernia scored twice in the top of the first inning, as Briner singled in Nathan Sides and Mike Cirilli on a single to center field with two outs.

Down 2-0, the Tigers loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom half of the first inning. Zeglen would hit a hard line drive that looked to head into the left for a hit, but instead was snared by third baseman Dillon Dunne, who tagged out the lead runner, and fired to first base for just the seventh triple play in all of Division III this season.
 
The Tigers got out of a bases loaded jam of their own by turning a double play to get out of the second inning, keeping it a 2-0 game.
 
In the third, the Tigers cut the deficit to one. Gorman doubled to deep right field and scored on a single by Kajganich, making it 2-1 Alvernia.

Alvernia extended its lead in the fifth inning, as Sides ripped a two-out triple to the center field wall, scoring Colin Reiger. The Crusaders would tack on four runs in the top of the sixth, despite only hitting one ball out of the infield on three walks, two singles, and an error, all coming with two outs to lead 7-1 after six innings.
 
Alvernia added one more run in the top of the seventh, but a two-out rally by the Tigers fueled by an Alvernia error in the bottom half made it 8-3.
 
Gorman added a leadoff solo home run in the bottom of the ninth, but Alvernia's Griffin retired the next three batters in order to cut the Tiger comeback short.

Alvernia out-hit RIT, 11-10. Both teams left 10 runners on base. RIT is now 1-5 all-time against Alvernia.

The Tigers lost for just the second time in their last 28 games and had their 12-game winning streak snapped. RIT also had a 14-game winning streak earlier in the season.
 
The Tigers will take on the loser of Thursday's second game, between top-seed Johns Hopkins and No. 8 seed Lesley in an elimination game on Friday morning at 10 a.m.