HANOVER, Md. – Wellington Balsley beat out an infield single, and a wild throw gave the Coppin State baseball team a 6-5 walk-off victory over North Carolina A&T in game two of a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Joe Cannon Stadium. The Eagles dropped the opening game, 9-3.
Trailing by a 5-4 score entering the bottom of the seventh,
Matt Day aggressively stretched a single to left into a double. The throw to nab Day at second was offline and allowed Day to advance to third.
Grant Williams followed up with a game-tying double over the head of the left fielder and he scored from second on Balsley's infield single as the throw from the shortstop was also not on target.
Coppin outhit North Carolina A&T by a whopping, 15-4 margin, with Balsley going 3-of-4 with a run scored. Day,
Eddie Javier, Jr., Sebastien Sarabia,
Darren Hagan and
Brandon Watkins all had two hits apiece as Hagan scored twice.
Day finished the nightcap, 2-for-3 with a double and a triple, along with a run scored an RBI and a walk.
North Carolina A&T scored two runs in the second despite not recording a base hit, but Day got one of the runs back with an RBI triple to left center, scoring Hagan from first after a leadoff single.
Giovanni Canales relieved starting pitcher
Jordan Hamberg to start the third and retired the side with a pair of strikeouts before throwing another scoreless inning in the fourth.
The Eagles took their first lead of the game with two runs in the fourth as Watkins, Balsley and Javier, Jr., recorded three-straight singles to start the inning. A wild pitch allowed Watkins to score and Balsley caught the defense sleeping between pitches and stole home to give Coppin a 3-2 lead.
Three runs scored for the Aggies in the fifth as CSU brought in
Rashad Ruff to finish off the fifth. Hagan quickly started a rally with a leadoff single in the bottom half of the frame and after stealing second, cut the deficit to 5-4 on Watkins' RBI single to center field.
Both teams went scoreless in the sixth and Ruff struck out a pair of Aggies in the seventh to keep it a one-run deficit.
Ruff earned his first win of the season, striking out four while allowing just two walks and no hits in 3.0 innings of relief. Canales gave up just two earned runs in his 2.0 innings of work, as did Hamberg.
Despite outhitting the Aggies in the opener, the scoreboard was not as kind to Coppin in game one. It was a pitcher's duel between
Tim Ruffino and Michael Johnson through the first three innings as both teams went scoreless until the visitors scored three in the fourth and added four more in the fifth to take a 7-0 lead.
CSU was able to solve Johnson in the sixth for a run on three hits with
Mike Dorcean's RBI single scoring Javier who had singled earlier in the inning.
Bradley Tuttle gave up a pair of runs in the seventh and Coppin rallied for two runs of its own in the bottom half but were unable to get any closer.
Conner Walker had a pair of hits in the game while also drawing a walk as Balsley and Javier both had a hit and a walk each.
Ruffino took the loss, allowing five runs on four hits while fanning five in 4.0 innings. Both of
John Neeld's runs were unearned and he struck out two while giving up one hit in 2.0 innings.
Coppin is set to travel to Navy on Wednesday, April 28 for a 3 pm start.
