Final Stats

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Navy baseball team earned a doubleheader split versus Lafayette in the best-of-three semifinals of the Patriot League tournament on Saturday at Max Bishop Stadium. The top-seeded Mids (35-18) fell to the fourth-seeded Leopards (14-26-1), 10-8 in game one before coming back in the win-or-go-home second game with an emphatic 12-0 victory.

"The first game was a battle, obviously the score was 10-8," said head coach Paul Kostacopoulos. "We kept going after them, but we really didn't get the relief pitching that we normally get. In game two, we swung the bats really well, played good defense and got great pitching. That was one of our most complete games of the year."

Though offense seemingly ruled the day between Navy and Lafayette it was a combined shutout in game two by the trio of Stephen Moore (Sr., Marietta, Ga.), Sam Sorenson (Jr., Etters, Pa.) and Charlie LaMar (Sr., Clearwater, Fla.) that helped the Mids stave off elimination and force a winner-take-all game three on Sunday. Moore hurled seven innings of scoreless five-hit ball before Sorenson and LaMar came on in relief to close out the 12-0 win in the second game on Saturday.

"Steve was special today," said Kostacopoulos. "He did two things that are very difficult, one he established himself right away as far as what he was going to do and had his three pitches working early and then he did something that people often overlook, he pitched really well with a big lead. People always just want you to throw the ball over and sometimes that affects your focus, but today he never changed and never deviated from his plan. He threw all seven innings like it was a nothing-nothing game. He did a great job for us."

Offensively, Navy combined for 31 hits over the doubleheader as the Mids had 13 hits in game one and 18 in game two. The trio of Leland Saile (So., Land O'Lakes, Fla.), Ben McGrath (Fr., Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) and Connor Deneen (Jr., Tustin, Calif.) spearheaded Navy's attack as they drove in 14 runs and had six combined extra-base hits. Saile and McGrath each had six RBIs, while Deneen had a triple and four runs scored.

"Leland did a great job," said Kostacopoulos. "He came off the bench and had three extra-base hits and drove in a bunch of runs. He really played an important role in lengthening our lineup today."

In game one, two All-Patriot League pitchers went head-to-head as Luke Gillingham (Jr., Coronado, Calif.) was on the mound for Navy, while Toby Schwartz toed the rubber for Lafayette. Neither southpaw hurler found much success as the only half-inning that went three-up, three-down was the bottom of the first.

The Leopards jumped out ahead of Gillingham and the Mids in the second inning as the visitors took advantage of an error and a wild pitch to score on a ground out.

With the score 1-0, Lafayette increased its lead to 5-0 in the fourth inning. The frame was in flux as Gillingham left the mound with an injury after retiring one batter and was hastily relieved by Sorenson. The Leopards netted their four runs on four hits, a walk and a hit batter.

Faced with a five-run deficit, Navy began chipping away in the bottom of the fifth with a pair of runs. Deneen came through with the big hit as the right-fielder tripled to left field to plate Robert Currie (Jr., Atlanta, Ga.) and Sean Trent (Jr., Sorrento, Fla.).

Kyle Condry (So., Highland Village, Texas) gave the Mids three straight innings of scoreless relief and allowed the top-seeded squad to tie the game up in the bottom of the seventh with three runs. Saile, McGrath and Travis Blue (So., Orange, Calif.) all recorded RBIs in the comeback rally.

With the game tied at 5-5, Lafayette took a significant step towards earning the win by scoring five runs in the top of the eighth.

Navy attempted to come back one final time in the eighth inning and had some success off Lafayette's Ari Kaufman as the Mids touched up the lefty for three runs. Once again it was the bottom of the order coming through as Saile scored Brad Borosak (Sr., Jupiter, Fla.) on a ground-rule double to center field and McGrath plated two on a single to left field.

The game would go final by a 10-8 score in favor of Lafayette. The Leopards out-hit the Mids, 17-13. Trent (4), Currie (2), Deneen (2) and Saile (2) all had multiple hits.

With just 30 minutes to recover from a trying game one setback and fight to extend their season, the Mids came out swinging in the second game. Navy jumped all over Lafayette starting pitcher David Bednar as the hosts scored three runs in the second inning and three in the third. Logan Knowles (Fr., Port Orchard, Wash.) got the offense going with a three-run inside-the-park home run into the left-field corner in the second. The momentum carried over into the third frame when Saile drove in one run before McGrath registered two RBIs on a triple to the center field wall.

A six-run lead would be more than enough support for Moore, who cruised through the Leopards' lineup with seven scoreless innings of five-hit ball. Mike Coniglio was the first Lafayette batter to reach second base as the center-fielder made it safely to second in the sixth inning. At no point during Moore's outing did a runner ever reach third base.

After Navy scored two runs in the seventh on a Saile double and increased its lead to 8-0, Moore hurled one final frame to close his statline at 7.0 innings, five hits, one walk and five strikeouts. The righty threw a season-high 122 pitches with his team's season hanging in the balance.

The Mids tacked on four more runs over the final two innings off of Leopard pitching as Trent drove in a single run in the eighth before Saile, McGrath and Blue recorded RBIs in the ninth.

LaMar, appearing in his second game of the day, set down Lafayette with another scoreless inning in the ninth to finish off the 12-0 victory.

In the win, Navy outhit Lafayette, 18-6. Currie, Deneen, Saile and McGrath all had three hits in the 12-run victory. 11 of the Mids' 12 runs were driven in by the 6-7-8-9 portion of the team's lineup.

"It was very important that our offense got going in the second half of game one," remarked Kostacopoulos. "Like anything in sports, you have to start from somewhere. The fact that we kept going and started to find our groove in game one definitely carried over into the second. I thought our fight in game one was really important to our success in game two."

Of note, Trent's single in the eighth inning broke the Navy single-season record for most hits in a year. The previous mark was 89 set by Thomas Hamilton in 2008.

The Mids' victory in game two gave the team 35 on the year, which equaled the 2008 team for most wins in a single-season.

"I don't too think much changes for tomorrow because we're 50-plus games into the season," said Kostacopoulos. "We're in a one-game season tomorrow and we just got to go out and play good baseball."

Navy and Lafayette will conclude their best-of-three series on Sunday with a 1 p.m. matchup at Max Bishop Stadium. The other semifinal in Bethlehem, Pa. involving Lehigh and Holy Cross will also wrap up tomorrow as both team won once on Saturday.