HANOVER, Md. – Coppin State's baseball team dropped a pair of games to Norfolk State on Saturday afternoon at Joe Cannon Stadium as the Eagles now stand at 5-13 overall and 3-5 in the MEAC. The Spartans took game one, 10-5, and the nightcap, 9-3, and improve to 7-14 with a 3-1 mark in league play.
In the opener, Norfolk got out to 1-0 lead with a solo home run to lead off the sixth as Coppin's
Jordan Hamberg struck out the side in the first and followed the home run with another three punchouts. The Eagles responded with a pair of runs in their half of the second on RBI singles by
Toran Smith and
Matt Day.
Norfolk responded with an eight-run inning in the third with just four hits and a pair of CSU errors to take a 9-2 lead with
John Neeld coming in to get the final two outs of the frame. It remained a seven-run lead until the Spartans added another run in the sixth, which the Eagles answered with a run in the bottom half of the inning.
Darren Hagan led off the seventh inning with a home run to cut the deficit to 10-5, but a double play put a halt to the rally.
Day had a two-hit game in the opener while Smith had a base hit, drew a walk, drove in a run and scored twice.
Hamberg took the loss, allowing four earned runs in 2.1 innings before Neeld went 2.2 innings without allowing an earned run and striking out three.
Matt Perkins tossed two scoreless innings, allowing just one hit.
Norfolk scored five unanswered runs in the first three innings of the nightcap before Hagan put CSU on the board with a sacrifice fly in the third, scoring
Devyan Dyal. The Spartans came right back with four runs in the fourth before
Mike Dorcean hit a two-run home run in the bottom half of the frame.
Tyler Nichol relieved starting pitcher
Giovanni Canales with one out in the fourth and got the final two outs. Nichol got even stronger has his outing went on as he struck out the side in the seventh and allowed just one hit over the final 3.2 innings with six strikeouts.
Coppin will look to get back in the win column when it travels to face Towson at 3 pm on Wednesday, March 31.
