Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Contact: Chris Kilcoyne

R-MC Baseball Knocks off Eastern Mennonite 9-7 For First ODAC Win
(Box Score)

HARRISONBURG -- Randolph-Macon College broke a 7-7 tie in the top of the eighth inning on an RBI single by Brian Jordan and then added another run in the ninth to edge the Eastern Mennonite University baseball team by a score of 9-7, Wednesday afternoon in Harrisonburg, Va.

The win puts the Yellow Jackets at 5-9 on the year. EMU drops to 6-10-1 overall with both teams now at 1-2 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.

The Yellow Jackets scored four runs in the top of the first inning to jump out to an early lead. After Jordan walked to lead off the game and Greg Meleski singled, Mike Wallace homered to put the Jackets on top 3-0. Jeff Beck made it back-to-back round trippers when he followed with a solo homer of his own.

EMU scored five unanswered runs over the next three innings, taking a 5-4 lead in the third inning when Matt Atkins plated Josh Martin on a sacrifice fly.

R-MC rallied in the fifth inning, loading the bases with one out and tying the game on a  walk issued to JC Conway.  R-MC then took the lead when EMU reliever Bryan Loy uncorked a wild pitch to score Meleski. An Adam Carpenter RBI ground out scored Conway to give R-MC a 7-5 advantage.

Things remained that way until the bottom of the seventh when the Royals scored of pair of runs to tie the game at 7-7.

Carpenter led off the visitor half of the eighth inning with a single then moved to second on a bunt by Jay Lichter. Greg Mitro advanced Carpenter to third on a ground ball to the right side, before Jordan singled up the middle to drive in what proved to be the game-winning run.

Conway tacked on an insurance run in the top of the ninth with a solo home run and Nick Simons collected the save for Haile Lytton who picked up the win after throwing two-thirds of an inning in relief.

Wallace was 2-for-4 with two runs scored and three RBI for the Yellow Jackets. Kevin Davis and Meleski each had three hits in five trips to the plate.

Randolph-Macon will return to action on Friday when it hosts Tufts at 3:00 p.m. in Ashland.

-Yellow Jackets-