May 18, 2003

Box Score

BOYERTOWN, Pa. -- The second-seeded and eighth-ranked Johns Hopkins baseball team split a pair of games at the NCAA Division III Mid-Atlantic Regional on Saturday. Hopkins dropped a 9-5 decision to host DeSales in the opener, but came back to eliminate top-seeded Rowan, 3-1 to advance. Hopkins, DeSales and Lakeland are the three remaining teams in the regional as Rowan, Otterbein and Alvernia have all been eliminated.

Against DeSales, the Blue Jays fell behind 8-0 before posting a five-spot in the seventh inning to make things interesting. DeSales tallied a late run to put the game away and drop the Blue Jays into the loser's bracket.

Paul Winterling and Jay Cieri led the offensive effort for the Blue Jays as both were 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI. Brian McConnell took the loss as he gave up five runs on two hits and three walks in just one inning of work.

Hopkins bounced back against the Profs as Russ Berger went the distance and allowed just the one run on seven hits to improve to 8-0 on the year. Only a Mike Rucci home run in the third inning, which gave Rowan a 1-0 lead, spoiled Berger's bid for a shutout.

Hopkins tied the game with a run in the fourth and added runs in the eighth and ninth to secure the win. Mike Spiciarich and Winterling belted back-to-back doubles in the eighth to give JHU a 2-1 lead and Joe Urban singled, stole second and scored on a Doug Hitchner single in the ninth for the insurance run.

Hopkins improves to 34-6 on the year and will play DeSales on Sunday at noon. A win there would leave all three teams remaining with one loss and Lakeland would then play either Hopkins or DeSales in an elimination game. A DeSales victory over JHU would set up a regional title-game against Lakeland. In that scenario, Lakeland would need to beat DeSales twice to advance to the Division III World Series.

Johns Hopkins has been to the World Series once in its history as head coach Bob Babb led the Blue Jays to a third-place finish in 1989.