HANOVER, Md. – Coppin State's baseball team allowed a six-run eighth inning in a 10-2 loss to La Salle on Friday afternoon at Joe Cannon Stadium. The Eagles fell to 0-5 on the season while the Explorers improved to 6-2 overall.
Jake Cumming allowed just three earned runs on four hits while striking out nine batters in 5.0 innings.
Jack Joyce and
Luke Corcoran gave up three runs apiece in their middle relief appearances before
McKenna Wakakuwa got a groundball double play before recording a strikeout in the only two batters he faced.
Nelson Grajales had a multi-hit game for Coppin, going 2-for-4 with a run scored while
Emilio Feliciano, Angel Garcia and
Noah Hogan had the other base knocks for the Eagles. Feliciano and Garcia's hits went for extra bases while Garcia and Hogan were credited with RBI.
Both teams went down in order in the first before La Salle got on the board with a two-run second. Coppin answered with two runs as well in the bottom half as Garcia laced a double to right center, scoring Grajales all the way from first. Garcia got to third on a throwing error on the play and tied the score on Hogan's single back to a charging pitcher.
La Salle regained the lead on a controversial run in the third before Cumming struck out the side in the fourth. The Explorers tacked on another run in the fifth to go up, 4-2, in Cumming's final inning of work.
Joyce faced the minimum in the sixth, forcing a groundball double play to end the inning before striking out the side in the seventh.
Six runs came across for La Salle in the eighth on just three hits with the RBI coming on a bases-loaded walk, a two-run single and a triple. Coppin forced the visitors into another double play in the ninth before threatening to score in the bottom half before a double play and a strikeout put an end to the potential rally.
The Eagles host La Salle in the second game of a three-game series at 1 pm on Saturday, February 28 at Joe Cannon Stadium.
