GALLOWAY, N.J. – The TCNJ baseball team snapped its four-game losing streak with an 8-6 victory at Stockton on Thursday in NJAC action.
Jack Haynes reached base in all five of his plate appearances, and
Chris Reeder hit his fourth home run of the season.
The Lions jumped all over Stockton in the early innings in support of starting pitcher
Matthew Crawford. TCNJ led, 7-1, after four innings, helping Crawford to the victory. He held his end of the bargain, allowing just a run on two hits in his five innings.
The big lead started with a three-run second inning, all with two outs.
Joey Cruciata tripled home the first two runs, plating both
Michael Schumacher and
Justin Marcario.
Mike Lagravenis followed with an RBI single to right field to make it 3-0 as four consecutive Lions had hits.
In the third,
Chris Cote singled and moved to third on
Joe Oczkowski's double. Two batters later, Cote scored on Marcario's single through the left side. Schumacher followed with his second hit of the game, and it chased home Oczkowski to make it 5-0.
After Stockton scored one in the bottom of the third, TCNJ added two more in the top of the fourth. Haynes led off with one of his three walks, and Reeder followed with a homer down the left-field line to make it 7-1.
Reeder leads the Lions with four home runs, 22 RBIs and a .495 slugging percentage. Haynes had two hits and three walks, raising his team-leading on-base percentage to .474.
Hayned led off the sixth with a walk, and he moved to second on Reeder's single. Two batters later, Haynes crossed the plate on Oczkowski's ground out. That made it 8-1.
Chris Cassini followed Crawford to the mound, and he was just as strong as the starter. He pitched three innings, allowing just an unearned run on three hits.
Stockton made things incredibly interesting in the ninth, though, scoring four times and having two men on base with the winning run at the plate with two outs and the score 8-6 TCNJ.
Alec Schwartz came in relief to strike out Jordan Nitti, though, to end the game.
Haynes, Reeder, Schumacher, Cote and Cruciata all had two hits for TCNJ.
The two teams play the return match on Friday at George Ackerman Park. First pitch is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.
