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ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy baseball team completed its weekend series with Yale on Sunday with a win and a tie. The Midshipmen (10-4-1) blew open a close game in the first contest with nine runs in fourth and fifth innings to lead to their eventual 11-4 win over the Bulldogs (0-7-1) before rain shortened game two at a final score of 2-2 through seven innings. For the second straight day at Terwilliger Brothers Field at Max Bishop Stadium, Navy's offense combined for 20 or more hits and got solid pitching efforts on the mound.

"I thought we played pretty well in the first game; we certainly were swinging it well at the plate," remarked Navy head coach Paul Kostacopoulos. "A little thing that we have been pushing for is to respond when your opponent scores and then when we score to go out and stop them. We have to continue to focus on that, but I thought we did a better job of controlling those momentum swings today.

"The second game was kind of strange; I don't mean that in a bad way, there just was a lot of rain and some uncertainty with the conditions of the field. It probably ended up the way it should have."

During Sunday's doubleheader, the Mids collected 20 total hits with Sean Trent (Sr., Sorrento, Fla.) and Travis Blue (Jr., Orange, Calif.) leading the way with four hits each. In game one, the duo combined for five hits and nine RBIs; five for Trent and four for Blue, both of which were career-highs. Ben McGrath (So., Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) joined the crew of leading offensive players with three hits and two RBIs over seven at bats.

"Travis was outstanding today," said Kostacopoulos. "He was right on their pitching from the start. He really made some nice adjustments at the plate. He was using the whole field; when guys tried to go in on him, he'd pull the ball and when they'd go after him away, he was using the right-center field gap. He's really expanding his ability to hit pitches throughout the zone."

On the mound, Navy had four pitchers appear over the 14.0 innings of action with Kyle Condry (Jr., Highland Village, Texas) leading the starting corps and Jett Meenach (Jr., Flower Mound, Texas) highlighting the Mids' relief activity. Condry was Navy's game two starter and threw 6.0 innings for just the third time in his career. He left game two with a line of five hits, two walks, one run and six strikeouts. As a reliever in game one, Meenach earned a three-inning save with no runs allowed and a strikeout in the 11-4 victory.

"Jett came in in game one and did a good job," said Kostacopoulos. "He needed some work; for whatever reason we haven't been able to get him in there much recently and he did a nice job with a three inning appearance today. It was a close game when he entered and then we started to stretch it out, but he did his job with quality results.

"Kyle did a good job of pitching through some adversity and giving us six solid innings and more importantly a chance to win."

In the first game of the doubleheader, the starting pitchers Noah Song (Fr., Claremont, Calif.) for Navy and Mason Kukowski for Yale each danced around early threats in the first two innings as the visiting Bulldogs had two runners on in the first and the Mids had single runners on in both the first and second innings.

Scoreless after two innings, Yale broke through onto the scoreboard first in the top of the third with two runs on three hits and one walk.

Navy didn't let its opponent hold onto that lead very long as the Mids came right back in the bottom of that frame with two runs of their own. With two outs, Navy started rallying as Trent shot a double down the left field line to score Robert Currie (Sr., Atlanta, Ga.) from first base before the senior leftfielder came in three batters later on a McGrath single through the right side of the infield.

With the score tied at 2-2, Song escaped another Yale threat in the top of the fourth as the Bulldogs got two runners into scoring position at second and third with two outs before the lanky right-handed pitcher struck out Simon Whiteman to end the inning.

Building off their momentum from both the field and at bat, Navy pulled ahead with an explosive bottom of the fourth. The team sent eight men to the plate and hung four runs on Yale pitching. Blue came through with the big hit as the junior shortstop connected for a double down the left field line to score Nick Paglialonga (Jr., Lake Forest, Calif.), Logan Knowles (So., Port Orchard, Wash.) and Currie. The Mids' fourth run came in on an RBI single by Trent passed the Bulldogs' third basemen and into left field.

In his first extensive appearance of more than 45 pitches this season, Song's day came to an end in the fifth as Yale was able to touch him up for a home run and walk before he was relieved. He finished his second career start with a line of 4.0-plus innings, seven hits, two walks and four runs allowed. Song struck out four Yale batters during his start.

Meenach took the baton from Song and allowed one inherited runner to score in the fifth, but was able to skirt further damage by forcing back-to-back ground balls.

Up 6-4, Navy blew the game open in the bottom of the fifth with five runs off of Yale relief pitcher Benny Wanger. Once again, the top of the Mids' lineup did the heavy lifting as Blue drove in Paglialonga before Trent came through with a three-RBI triple. The fifth RBI of the inning came courtesy of a groundout by pinch-hitter Stephen Born (So., Strafford, Pa.).

Meenach made sure the seven-run lead held up with two consecutive innings of scoreless ball over the sixth and seventh innings. The former third baseman was able to help his cause with a crisply turned 1-6-3 double play in the sixth.

In the 11-4 victory, Navy outhit Yale, 12-11. The top three batters in the Mids' lineup; Currie (2), Blue (2) and Trent (3) collected seven hits, while McGrath added two from the six-hole.

After knocking around the Bulldogs' pitching in game one, game two was slightly more conservative in the run-scoring department. Both starting pitchers, Condry for Navy and Kumar Nambiar for Yale took advantage of the less-than-stellar weather conditions to keep batters uncomfortable at the plate and off the scoreboard for the most part. The low-scoring contest began with a scoreless first inning before Yale plated a solo run in the top of the second.

A pair of zeroes were put on the scoreboard in the third inning before the Mids got to Nambiar for four hits and two runs in the bottom of the fourth. After a leadoff double by Trent and a single by Scott Koscho (Fr., Trafford, Pa.) started the inning, one-out RBI singles by McGrath and Matthew Wilcox (Fr., Los Gatos, Calif.) put Navy ahead 2-1.

Condry thrived off that momentum and struck out two Yale hitters in the fifth and one more in the sixth to move the game along to the seventh with the margin 2-1 in favor of Navy.

In the eventual final inning of play, the Bulldogs played small ball versus the Mids and their new reliever Sam Sorenson (Sr., Etters, Pa.). The visitors came away with the game-tying run on a Tom O'Neill bunt down the first base line to score Tim DeGraw.

Navy threatened Yale's reliever Drew Scott with a one-out bases loaded situation in the bottom of the seventh, but the right-hander buckled down and forced a double play to end the inning.

Following the double play, the lead umpire threw up his hands to signify that the conditions were deteriorating too much and that play would be halted due to the incessant rain that had been falling throughout the majority of game two.

In the 2-2 tie, Navy outhit Yale, 8-6. Blue and Koscho led the way in the hit department with two hits a piece.

The tie was the first for the Mids since March 9, 2011 at Towson.

For the series, Navy outhit Yale, .375 to .234 and recorded 42 hits, nine of which went for extra-bases. Six different players registered a batting average of .400 or better (five at bats minimum). The Mids outscored the Bulldogs, 24 to 10 and fielded their position at a .963 clip. On the mound, Navy used six pitchers and got three quality starts of six innings or more and three or less runs allowed to lead to a 3.86 ERA. The Mids' staff posted a 22:10 strikeout to walk ratio over the four games and 30.0 innings.

"It was a good weekend for us and is something that we need to continue to build on," remarked Kostacopoulos. "Its not always necessarily about the record that we post on a given weekend, but its about us getting better. I definitely feel that we succeeded in accomplishing that."

Navy will continue its slate of non-conference action this week with six games, including five at home at Max Bishop Stadium. The first game of that stretch will be a Wednesday contest at home against Buffalo at 12 p.m.