May 4, 2013

Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - Senior Jeff Lynch belted a three-run go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth to lift the No. 6 Johns Hopkins baseball team to a dramatic 5-3 victory over Haverford in the knockout round of the Centennial Conference playoffs. The Blue Jays keep their conference title hopes alive with the victory, and will play the loser of Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg this afternoon.

With two outs and two men on in the bottom of the eighth, Lynch came up to the plate to face pitcher Tommy Bergjans in a premier matchup between arguably the Centennial Conference's two best players.

Bergjans had previously retired the Blue Jay first baseman three times in the contest, but Lynch won the ultimate battle after crushing a first-pitch fastball over the left field fence to give Hopkins a 5-3 lead.

The table was set for the Jays in the eighth as Adam Weiner hit an infield single to shortstop and Kyle Neverman reached base after being hit by a pitch. Sophomore Colin McCarthy then knocked in Weiner with a single up the middle that glanced off the glove of Haverford second baseman Mike Tentilucci to make the score 3-2 in favor of the Fords.

Hopkins trailed less than 60 seconds into the game as Hopkins starter Jacob Enterlin allowed a single and a triple on his first two pitches of the game. George Hatamiya's triple scored Nick Miranda from first base, while Justin Coulter knocked an RBI groundout to shortstop to give the Fords and Bergjans an early 2-0 lead.

Sophomore pitcher Tommy Bergjans struck out the side in the first inning, but the Blue Jay bats showed life in the second as Mike Denlinger smacked a double to left center. After advancing to third on a passed ball, Denlinger scored on a Chris Wilhelm single up the middle to cut the deficit in half, 2-1.

The contest turned into a pitcher's dual over the course of the next few innings as Bergjans and Enterlin retired nine consecutive batters each. Bergjans fanned 11 and went the distance for the Fords, while Enterlin struck out eight batters in 7.2 innings of work.

Haverford manufactured their third run in the sixth as Coulter reached base on a wild pitch strikeout by Enterlin. The play proved costly for the Jays as Coulter advanced to second and then scored on an RBI single by Matt Liscovitz.

Sophomore relief pitcher Justin Drechsel was able to get the final out of the eighth, and then earned the victory in the ninth by retiring all three Haverford batters.

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