Jared Kish
Sports Editor
After beating Shippensburg twice at home on Saturday, the Marauders headed to Shippensburg for two more against the Raiders on Sunday. Millersville has been playing great baseball over the past couple of weeks and there was no different for Sundays two games with the Raiders.
Millersville starter Cordell Shannon toed the slab in game one against Shippensburg and has had success in the past against the Raiders. Coming in, Shannon is 3-0 and looked to improve to 4-0 against his hometown team.
The Marauders kicked things off on the scoreboard by scoring on the Raiders miscues. In the second inning, the Raiders committed two errors which led to the Marauders first three runs of the game. Another Raider mistake in the third led to two more Marauder runs and Millersville had a 5-0 lead heading into the bottom of the third inning.
Shippensburg’s offense would answer back with a three-run bottom of the third, scoring off Shannon. This broke a 27 consecutive scoreless innings streak against Shippensburg for Shannon.
The top half of the fourth for the Marauders is where they started to break away from the Raiders. Shippensburg committed another error to start off the inning, and that opened the floodgates. The Millersville offense that has been mashing the ball lately, tacked on seven runs to their 5-3 lead due to Shippensburg’s poor defensive effort.
Millersville also recorded five hits in the inning with Ben Snyder, Dominic Hardaway and Eric Callahan all driving in runs for the Marauders.
The Marauder offense continued their hot hitting by putting up four more runs and blowing past Shippensburg in the first game of Sundays double header 16-5.
Shannon is now 4-0 against the Raiders in his collegiate career and he pitched a solid five innings, while striking out six, and giving up four runs on seven hits.
Kaylor Kulina reached base five times and scored three runs. Kulina went 3-4 with two doubles and two walks. Dominic Hardaway also had a bug game as he drove in three and scored three times going 2-4.
The Millersville offense continues to rake, and they hoped to push that momentum into game two against Shippensburg.
The Marauders had a little more trouble in game two then game one. Millersville trailed 3-0 going into the top of the sixth, and could not figure out Shippensburg starter Michael Hope. Hope had just allowed three singles and struck out nine Marauders through five innings of work.
Finally, the Marauder offense broke through and scored in the sixth on the unstable Raiders defense. By playing small ball, the Marauders were able to score three runs.
It started off with a Kulina single and the next two batters Ben Snyder, and Dominic Hardaway both laid down bunts and both reached base safely. Hardaway reached safely on an error which allowed one run to score. Luke Trainer grounded out, but a run came in on the play, and Jimmy Losh tied things up with a squeeze bunt.
The Raiders threatened in the bottom half of the inning with two one out singles. However, reliever Aidan Welch came in and got the two outs needed to leave the Shippensburg runners stranded.
No action in the seventh led the game to proceed into extra innings as the Marauders would then capitalize on another Shippensburg error. Snyder led off the inning reaching on the Raiders miscue. Hardaway singled and then both runners perfectly executed a double steal. With Snyder on third and Hardaway on second, Trainer hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly which brought home the go ahead run.
Up 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth, Welch stayed on the mound and secured the victory in the fourth and final game of the Shippensburg Millersville weekend series.
Millersville once again played outstanding baseball, beating Shippensburg in all four weekend games. The Marauders are now 20-7 on the season and 7-1 in the PSAC East division.
The Marauders will play their next two games home Friday, April 5, against Kutztown as their offense looks to continue their tremendous hitting.
