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ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy baseball team secured its first series sweep over its archrivals Army West Point for the first time since 1998 on Sunday with a pair of victories at home over the Black Knights. The large and boisterous crowd at Terwilliger Brothers Field at Max Bishop Stadium was treated to an offensive outburst in game one's 7-3 victory for the Mids (33-11-1, 12-4 PL) before Kyle Condry (Jr., Highland Village, Texas) controlled the Black Knights (14-28, 5-11 PL) to the tune of three hits over his 7.2-inning start that eventually resulted in a 3-1 win for Navy.

"The mixture of outstanding pitching and a lot of clutch hits was the story of today," remarked head coach Paul Kostacopoulos. "We bunched some hits together at the right time and most of the time we had good outcomes. I thought again we played really solid defense for the second straight day. We got a pretty complete team effort."

Condry led a quartet of Midshipmen pitchers, who threw versus the Black Knights on Sunday. The junior right-hander opened his game two start with four perfect innings before allowing a leadoff single in the top of the fifth. Over his first seven innings on the mound, Army's entire offense consisted of two single by John McCarthy. A double and walk in the eighth inning signaled the end of his day with a final line of 7.2 innings, three hits, one run, one walk and seven strikeouts. Game one's starter Noah Song (Fr., Claremont, Calif.) also recorded seven strikeouts over his 5.1 innings on the mound. The freshman allowed seven hits and was charged with three runs. In relief, the duo of Jackson Zoch (Fr., San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) in game one and Sam Sorenson (Sr., Etters, Pa.) in game two combined for 3.0 innings of scoreless pitching.

"Kyle was the best I've ever seen him," said Kostacopoulos. "He picked the right day to be his best and really led the way for us. All day we got strong pitching efforts and that had a major effect on our offense because they gave us a lot of chances by constantly putting up zeroes."

At the plate, Navy connected off of Army West Point pitching for 20 combined hits, 10 in each game. Connor Deneen (Sr., Tustin, Calif.), Sean Trent (Sr., Sorrento, Fla.) and Travis Blue (Jr., Orange, Calif.) led a well-balanced attack for the Mids on Sunday. Deneen went 5-for-6 at the plate with two RBIs, while both Trent and Blue collected three hits and two RBIs each.

"Sean, Leland [Saile], Connor and Matt [Wilcox] really did a good job in game one and picked us up when we needed them to; that was good to see," said Kostacopoulos. "Across the board, I'm really happy with the balance that we have one through nine. Five, six, seven and eight did it in game one with the big hits, but really everyone contributed today. I think you see that depth because we're very capable of stringing together hits back-to-back-to-back."

Army started off Sunday's doubleheader fast with some quick strike offense from its leadoff hitter Kris Lindner in the top of the first inning. After Lindner reached on a single, another single and a passed ball resulted in the Black Knights' early 1-0.

Song shrugged off the early run and quickly settled in with a run of 10 straight batters retired from the second through fifth innings. With the Black Knights subdued, it was up to the Midshipmen to find a way onto the scoreboard versus Army starter, Tyler Giovinco. After threatening with a two-on and two-out situation and coming up empty in the bottom of the second, Navy finally got to Giovinco in the third with one run on three consecutive singles to open the inning. Blue's single to center field plated the Mids their first run as Robert Currie (Sr., Atlanta, Ga.) sprinted in from second base on the base hit.

With the score tied at 1-1, Navy broke open a three-run lead of 4-1 in the bottom of the fourth inning. After a leadoff walk to Leland Saile (Jr., Land O'Lakes, Fla.) and a double by Deneen made it first and third with no outs, freshman second baseman Matthew Wilcox (Los Gatos, Calif.) drove in both with a double to base of the left field wall. Wilcox later came into score on a sacrifice fly by Blue. This string of success at the plate forced Army's hand and Giovinco was pulled in favor of lefty reliever Cam Opp.

The change in pitchers didn't faze Navy as the team teed off on Opp for two hits in the fourth and three more in the fifth inning. The three hits in the fifth resulted in three more runs for the host Midshipmen, who went ahead 7-1. The first four batters in the frame reached base as Stephen Born (So., Strafford, Pa.) led off with a walk before Trent roped a triple to the left field wall off the top of the padding near the fence line to make it 5-1. Saile was next up and he swiftly made it 6-1 with another extra-base hit, this one a double to right-center field. Deneen rounded out the string of RBI base hits with a single to center field that scored Saile.

Up 7-1, Song ran into a bit of trouble in the top of the sixth when he allowed three straight hits to Black Knight batters. He was relieved by his classmate Zoch, who mitigated most of the damage and got the Mids out of the inning with the score 7-3. The final line for Song was 5.1 innings, seven hits, no walks, three runs and seven strikeouts.

Zoch sat down Army in order in the top of the seventh and the game went final at 7-3.

In the Mids' victory they outhit the Black Knights, 10-7. Deneen led Navy's charge with a perfect 3-for-3 game at the plate. Seven other teammates also recorded hits. The Mids' well-balanced attack saw six different players score runs.

For his solid starting effort, Song earned the victory to improve to 6-2 on the year, while Giovinco was saddled with the loss to drop to 1-4 in 2016.

In the second game, starting pitching was the story early as both Navy's Kyle Condry and Army's Daniel Burggraaf were putting up zero after zero on the scoreboard. The stalwart starting pitching resulted in five straight scoreless innings. Through the first four frames, Condry was a perfect 12-of-12 with three strikeouts and just two balls hit out of the infield. Burggraaf was nearly as impressive as he had four strikeouts and spread out three individual single hits over the first, third and fourth innings.

With the game moving at a brisk pace through five innings and the game deadlocked at 0-0, Navy broke the scoreless tie with a pair of two-out RBIs in the bottom of the sixth. After the first two hitters of the frame had been retired, Born began the rally with a single up the middle past the outstretched arm of Burggraaf. Another single, this one by Trent, put two men on for Deneen, who kept swinging his hot bat and connected for a single to center field to plate Born. The next hitter, Saile kept the action moving with a single through the left side to drive in Trent.

Navy took a 2-0 lead into the seventh and Army immediately made the hosts uneasy with two of its first three runners reaching base, one on a single and one via error. With two on and one out, Currie made a play that few collegiate centerfielders can make as he robbed Jacob Page of a certain double into the gap with an all-out sprint from medium-range center field to the right-center gap and slide into a basket catch at his waist. An easy groundout to second base put a stop to the threat and the Mids moved onto the bottom of the seventh inning.

In the bottom of the frame, another two-out hit, this one by Born, increased Navy's lead to 3-0. Logan Knowles (So., Port Orchard, Wash.) led off the inning with a walk before his chances of scoring began to look bleak. Standing on third base with two outs, Knowles came into score when Born hit a high-bouncing ball over the pitcher's mound towards the shortstop position that allowed him to sprint down the first base line and earn an infield single.

"We really did a good job with getting hits with two outs today," remarked Kostacopoulos. "That's something that we stress in practice, having a good approach and being aware of the situation."

Up 3-0, Condry was touched up for his third and final hit of the game in the top of the eighth as Ryan Levenhagen hit a double to right field. After a two-out walk, the junior right-hander's day was done as Sorenson was summoned from the bullpen. Though Sorenson allowed the inherited runner from third base to score, he snuffed out any further offensive activity by the Black Knights and sent the game into the bottom of the eighth at a 3-1 margin.

Both teams looked to scratch out some more offense in their final at bats, but both Navy in the bottom of the eighth and Army in the top of the ninth were held to just one base hit each. Sorenson had an emphatic conclusion to the game as the senior closer struck out Josh White looking.

"We have a lot of confidence in Sam to go out there and get three, four or sometimes five outs and pitch us out of trouble," said Kostacopoulos. "He did a great job all weekend in some pressure situations."

In the 3-1 victory for Navy, the Mids outhit the Black Knights 10-5. Blue, Born, Deneen and Trent all had two hits in the win.

On the mound, Condry's three-hit effort resulted in the personal victory as he improved to 5-0 on the year. For his 1.1 innings of scoreless, two-hit relief, Sorenson netted his sixth save of the season. Burggraaf was the hard-luck loser with two runs allowed over 5.2 innings. His record fell to 2-2.

In the 4-0 series sweep for Navy, the Mids outhit the Black Knights, .298 to .234, and outscored them 19-8. Both teams had six extra-base hits. Navy was able to take advantage of occasional bouts of wildness by Army pitchers to record 13 walks and two hit by pitches for a .377 on-base percentage. Led by Deneen's .500 (6-12) batting average, eight different Mids had three or more hits over the series. Six players had multiple RBIs led by Blue with three, while Currie (4) led six Midshipmen with multiple runs scored.

The Black Knights were held to an 0-2 mark in stolen base attempts after coming into the weekend as the Patriot League leader in stolen bases with 60.

Pitching-wise, Navy utilized seven hurlers over 32.0 innings and four posted scoreless statlines. Led by Luke Gillingham's complete game five-hitter with 10 strikeouts in Saturday's first contest, all four Midshipmen starting pitchers threw into the sixth inning and recorded at least six strikeouts. As a staff, Navy posted a 34:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

"Its always good to get a sweep in league play," remarked Kostacopoulos. "The way the league broke this week, two other teams swept so the pressure was on us to keep pace. It'll be a fight to the finish next weekend."

Navy will be back in action on Wednesday with a non-conference game at George Mason. First pitch between the Mids and Patriots is scheduled for 3 p.m. in Fairfax, Va.