ALLIANCE, Ohio – Mount Union split a pair of baseball games Friday winning the opener 5-2 and falling 3-1 in nine innings in game two against La Roche (Pa.) at Rafeld-Rogers Field.
After the scheduled seven-inning doubleheader split, the Purple Raiders are now 7-6 overall while La Roche is 4-6 overall.
Thomas Gallant (Pataskala / Watkins Memorial) scattered five hits, allowed only one earned run and struck out 11 over the first six innings as he moved to 3-1 and led Mount Union to a 5-2 win in the opener.
The Raiders jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning in three straight at-bats as Chase Angotti (Monongahela, Pa. / Ringgold) hit an RBI double, Coleman Stauffer (Boardman) had a sacrifice fly RBI and Joey Nave (Toronto / Edison) had an RBI single.
Eric Schilling (Stow / Stow-Munroe Falls) had an RBI single in the third to push the Mount Union lead to 4-0.
La Roche got on the board in the fourth on a solo home run by Nathan Stutz, but Mount Union got that run back in the bottom half of the inning on a Nave sacrifice fly and it was 5-1.
La Roche scored a run in the seventh but nothing more and the Raiders won 5-2.
Angotti had three hits in game one.
In game two, Mount Union starter Dwayne Sumler (Indianapolis, Ind. / Warren Central) held La Roche scoreless on five hits for seven innings with nine strikeouts, but Redhawk starter Tyler Vargon was up to the challenge as he held the Raiders scoreless for six innings on just six hits.
The game was scoreless until the top of the ninth when La Roche broke through with a Tyler Simpson RBI single and a two-run home run from Justin Stancovic to take a 3-0 lead.
Mount Union rallied with a solo home run from Schilling and had the tying run at the plate when the game ended.
The Raiders stay home and host Thiel (Pa.) in a non-conference nine-inning game, Tuesday, March 22 at 2 p.m. at Rafeld-Rogers Field.
