LEWISBURG, Pa. – Kicking off a series between the top two teams in the Patriot League, the Navy baseball team rallied in both games of a doubleheader Sunday afternoon at Depew Field, sweeping Bucknell, 9-4 and 5-3, to take over first place in the league standings.
 
Picking up their ace Brady Bendik by scoring nine unanswered runs at one point, the Midshipmen got a three-RBI outing from Andrew Manning and Chris Klug going 3-for-4 in the opener. Navy then got its second rally started with Jake Hooten's second home run of the season, while back-to-back multi-hit performances from both Manning and Klug further powered the Mids in the nightcap to back up Owen Phypers' five innings of impressive relief work.
 
Game One Recap
Bucknell landed the first blow in the second when a Navy fielding error on a potential inning-ending lineout was dropped, allowing John Calabrese to give the Bison a 1-0 lead. Calabrese continued his hot start to the day in the third after a pair of singles put two on, as he laced a double down the right-field line to score Garrett Mathias and Ty Lagoni for a 3-0 edge.
 
Navy started to claw back in the fourth when Evan Brown singled and stole second, coming around for the Mids' first run on Manning's own single through the left side. Loading the bases in the fifth, Navy made it a 3-2 game when Brown lifted a deep sacrifice fly to plate Noah Stead, while Patrick Walsh drew a walk to load the bases again and Manning worked his own walk to drive in Tyler Cripe and tie the game. The big inning continued one batter later, as Klug ripped a two-run single into left field that brought in Victor Izquierdo and Walsh for a 5-3 lead.
 
The Mids continued to add to its lead in the sixth with Izquierdo, Walsh and Manning all punching RBI singles into the outfield, swelling the advantage to 8-3. Navy capped its scoring in the top of the seventh when Klug led off with a double into left field and Will Howard later doubled home Klug for a 9-3 edge.
 
Bucknell tried to start a two-out rally in the bottom of the seventh with Calabrese's RBI single into the right-center gap that plated Garrett Mathias, but reliever Jackson Clark then induced the Zach Selfon groundout to close the game and bring the Mids and Bison even in the league standings.
 
Bendik finished with three runs allowed (two earned) over his six innings, striking out seven and getting the win, while Clark faced six batters in his one frame of action.
 
For Bucknell, starter Jake Schultz limited Navy to two runs and struck out five in 4.1 innings, while Bryce Mitchell took the loss by allowing three runs in his 0.1 frame and Hadley Maxwell gave up three runs himself in an inning of relief. Frankie Bilecki and Kobe Julks then pitched 0.2 innings each, with Bilecki giving up the Mids' final run.
 
Game Two Recap
The Bison opened the scoring in the nightcap that initially seemed like the early makings of a pitchers' duel between Bucknell's Brady Hoar and Navy starter Matt Archibald, as Mathias deposited a solo homer over the right-field wall to lead off the bottom of the second.
 
Navy got its own offense going with a solo shot in the fifth, as Hooten sent a homer down the left-field line to even the score. Stead then tallied a two-out single and came around for a 2-1 lead on Cripe's opposite-field double that hugged the left line.
 
With Archibald exiting due to injury before the bottom of the fifth, Bucknell jumped on Phypers early to retake the lead. Selfon's lead-off single was followed by Lleyton Coupe's triple and eventually Billy Fluharty singled home Coupe to make it a 3-2 Bison lead.
 
Phypers then loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth but locked in the rest of the game, getting a force-out at home, a strikeout of Coupe and an Andrew Swenson flyout to escape any damage in the frame and then retired nine of the final 10 Bucknell batters.
 
Navy's lineup picked up the pitching staff in the eighth with a three-spot that gave the Mids their second lead of the game. Brown's lead-off hit-by-pitch was quickly followed by Walsh's double to the left-center wall, allowing Brown to score from first on the play and tie the game once again. Manning then singled into center to plate Walsh and put Navy ahead, while the Mids added insurance later in the inning on Howard's squeeze bunt down the first-base line that scored Manning for a 5-3 edge.
 
With Phypers getting better as the game wore on, his team's defense closed out the win when Cripe made a sliding stop up the middle and threw out Deacon Bowne to end the game.
 
Archibald's only hit allowed in his four innings was the Mathias solo shot, striking out seven to just one walk, and Phypers notched the win by going five frames and limiting the Bison to the two runs while punching out five batters himself.
 
Hoar finished with two runs allowed and four strikeouts in his six-inning start, while Lima Jones suffered the loss by giving up three runs in two innings and Tyler Hawkins recorded the final three outs for the Bison.
 
Game Notes
• Navy now holds a 103-89-1 all-time record against Bucknell and has won its last three games in Lewisburg.
• Bendik has gone six-or-more innings in each of his last eight starts and has earned the winning decision in four-straight contests.
• Sunday's nightcap marked Phypers' first collegiate relief outing.
• Klug has multi-hit contests in five of his last six games.
• Klug's three hits in the opener matched his career high, also marking his third three-hit game this season.
• Walsh improved his hitting streak to 15 games and his on-base streak to 24 games.
• Klug, Brown and Cripe are all on six-game hitting streaks entering Monday.
 
Up Next
Navy and Bucknell will close out the series on Monday, with first pitch set for 1:05 p.m.