HANOVER, Md. – Coppin State's baseball team split a low-scoring doubleheader with University of Hartford on Saturday afternoon, falling, 3-1 in game one, before taking the nightcap, 4-3 at Joe Cannon Stadium. The Eagles now stand at 9-17 on the season.
Game 1: Harford def. Coppin State, 3-1
Coppin only got hits from
Brett Curran,
Liam McCallum and
Angel Colon while McCallum also drew a walk and
Mike Dorcean reached on a pair of walks. Curran was also hit by a pitch and Colon was plunked twice.
Tyler Nichol took the loss, allowing just three runs on six hits while striking out seven in 7.0 innings of work.
Nico Felber struck out four in the final two innings and gave up just one hit.
Hartford scored a pair of runs in the first on two hits while adding a walk and a hit batsman. Nichol was outstanding after the first, holding Hartford without a run until the seventh.
Coppin got on the board in the fifth as Colon doubled to dead center, scoring Dorcean all the way from first after he drew a one-out walk.
Nichol struck out the side in the sixth, but CSU went down in order before the Hawks tacked on another run to make it a 3-1 lead. Felber got a 1-2-3 eighth inning and Coppin stranded a pair in the bottom half, keeping it a two-run deficit.
Coppin threatened again in the ninth as McCallum and Dorcean drew back-to-back walks with one out. After a pitching change, Colon was hit by a pitch, loading the bases with two outs before a groundball ended the game.
Game 2: Coppin State def. Hartford, 4-3
Bryce Thompson had two of Coppin's four base hits while
Brett Curran drove in a pair of runs with a triple.
Jordan Hamberg also had a base hit.
Marcos Herrand earned the win, striking out eight in 5.2 innings of work before
Rashad Ruff retired all four batters, he faced to pick up the save.
Herrand got out of a jam to start the game, allowing back-to-back hits before striking out the next three batters.
Coppin gave him a two-run lead as Thompson recorded a single before a
Jordan Hamberg double put two runners in scoring position. A wild pitch scored Thompson for the first run of the game before
Sebastien Sarabia pushed a squeeze bunt to second base, driving in Hamberg.
Hartford got one of the runs back in the second, but Coppin scored two more in the second on a two-run triple to right field by Curran.
It remained a 4-1 score until Hartford cut into that with a two-run sixth. Ruff replaced Herrand with two outs in the inning and got the final out of the frame on just one pitch.
A double play thwarted a possible big inning for Coppin in the sixth, but Ruff got a foul out and a pair of groundouts to end the game.
Up Next
Coppin hosts Hartford in the series finale on Sunday, April 2 at 1:00 pm at Joe Cannon Stadium.
