Men's Baseball took on Geneva College in Myrtle Beach, SC back on Friday March 10th. The Patriots battled and finished their week strong, winning 10-3!
Brandon Dalmado got the start on the bump for Valley Forge, where he continued his past dominance. Getting off to a hot start, he gave up zero hits in the first and grabbed his first strikeout of the game. The Patriot offense went down quietly in the bottom of the first. Dalmado continued his dominance in the top half of the 2nd and 3rd innings, racking up two more strikeouts and only walking one batter. In the bottom of the 3rd, Liam Prepetit was able to reach base on a throwing error but got caught stealing 2nd base to end the inning. Leaving the score at 0-0 after 3 innings. Geneva grabbed their first hit of the game in the 4th on a single to left, but the next two batters struck out and grounded out to the pitcher to end the inning. The Patriots finally got on the board in the bottom half of the 4th. In a huge way! They put up an 8 run inning! Back to Back singles by Aaron Gonzales and Colin Orndorff with no outs started it off. A throwing error by Geneva on a bunt brought in the first run of the game. Carlos Terc came up to the plate with runners on 2nd and 3rd and roped a single to right to score another, creating a 2 run lead. A single by Josh Nieberlein brought in the 3rd run of the game. Two batters later, back to back Geneva errors brought in the 4th and 5th runs of the game. Liam Prepetit came up to the plate with the bases loaded and singled to right, bringing in yet another run. A wild pitch in the next at bat scored Brayden Tunnell, bringing the score to 7-0. To finish the scoring, Colin Orndorff walked with the bases loaded to bring in the 8th and final run of the inning. Giving the Patriots an 8-0 lead going into the 5th. Starter Brandon Dalmado continued to do his thing, going 3 up and 3 down in the top of the 5th. Two more Geneva errors made the bottom half of the 5th interesting, but the Patriots went down quietly. In the top of the 6th, Geneva finally got on the board. Posting two doubles and two singles to put up 3 runs of their own, bringing the score to 8-3. The bottom of the 6th saw Patrick Trevillion get on with a leadoff walk. A groundout to 2nd from Carlos Terc moved the runner to 2nd and a Josh Nieberlein single moved him to 3rd. A bit of funky baserunning by Josh Nieberlein helped Patrick Trevillion score the 9th run for the Patriots. Dalmado had a clean inning in the 7th and the offense was able to put up their 10th run of the game in the bottom half. Brayden Tunnell started the inning with a double down the left field line and a Liam Prepetit SAC fly brought him in to bring the score to 10-3. Reliever Jack Qualteria came in to pitch the top half of the 8th, grabbing a strikeout of his own with only one hit allowed. He came back in for the top of the 9th and pitched a clean inning to finish the game.
Josh Nieberlein led the Patriots in hits (2) and stolen bases (2), Liam Prepetit led in RBI (2), Brandon Dalmado pitched 7 strong innings with only 3 earned runs allowed on 5 hits while gathering 7 strikeouts. Jack Qualteria had 2 strong innings of his own, allowing 0 runs on only 1 hit.
Baseball takes on Cairn University in their first conference matchup of the season on Friday March 15th. Game time is 3 PM.
