NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Liam McCallum and
Sebastien Sarabia hit back to-back home runs to tie the score in the ninth and
Josh Hankins scored the go-ahead run later in the inning to give the Coppin State baseball team a wild, 16-15 victory over Merrimack on Friday afternoon. The win was the Eagles' first-ever in the Northeast Conference and gave head coach
Sherman Reed 150 wins in his career.
Sarabia finished the afternoon 4-for-6 with two home runs, a double and four RBI as Coppin went off for a season-high 19 base hits.
Brian Nicolas had three hits while driving in two as McCallum, Hankins,
Mike Dorcean,
Brody Black and
Brett Curran all had multi-hit games. McCallum, Black and Curran drove in two runs each.
McCallum went the first 4.2 innings on the mound before giving ay to
Nico Felber, who allowed three runs over the next 3.0 innings.
Rashad Ruff retired all four batters he faced and fanned three batters to pick up the win.
Sarabia helped Coppin strike first in the game with a two-run double in the first, driving in
Jordan Hamberg and
Corey Miley. Hankins then drove in McCallum with a sacrifice fly before Curran drove in both Sarabia and Black with a two-run single, extending the lead to 5-0.
Merrimack came right back with two runs over the next two innings before Coppin got both back with a two-run single by Nicolas in the third. The Warriors, however, fought right back and tied the score at 7-7 after three.
Sarabia and Dorcean both homered in the fourth to put the Eagles back on top, and they added another run in the fifth as Nicolas scored following a single and a pair of errors by the pitcher.
The hosts took its first lead of the game at 11-10 after scoring four times in the fifth. It was a short-lived advantage as Black doubled in the sixth, driving in Hankins from first to tie the score.
Both teams went scoreless in the seventh, the only time that both teams failed to score in an inning. Black gave CSU a 12-11 lead as he beat out an infield single in the eighth to score Hankins.
Four hits and an error helped Merrimack score four runs in the eighth before Ruff got the final batter swinging, but the damage was done, giving MC a 15-12 lead.
In Coppin's ninth-inning rally, the first two batters were retired before
Anthony Divittorio kept the team alive with a pinch-hit walk. McCallum then laced a shot over the right field fence, for his first career home run, and more importantly bringing the deficit to a single run. Sarabia then took the Warriors deep to dead center for his second home run of the game and tying the score at 15-15.
Hankins followed Sarabia with a opposite field triple, and following a pitching change, scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch.
After the side was retired, Ruff shut the door on Merrimack in the ninth, getting a groundout to first while fanning the final two batters.
A doubleheader will be played between the same two teams on Saturday, March 18 starting at 12 pm. Sunday's date was moved to Saturday due to inclement weather in the forecast.
