WILKES-BARRE– Yesterday,
Ryan Kehr watched his classmate
Josh Freed deliver a sparkling seven inning performance in a 12-2 home win over Wilkes. Today, Kehr needed to be better. With his team's offense struggling to find a rhythm, Kehr shut out the Colonels through regulation and delivered a four-hit complete-game win as the Eagles claimed game one by a 2-1 score.
A late Eastern rally fell short in the second game of the doubleheader as the Eagles lost 6-3 in their attempt to sweep the series.
Kehr was the story of the day.
The senior right-hander did not allow a hit through 4.1 innings. The Colonels got a one out double in the fifth inning, but a good relay throw from Zach Belansek got the runner trying to take thrid on the play. Wilkes hit a leadoff single in the sixth, but
Timmy Gorton threw out the runner trying to steal second base.
Even with Kehr dominating, the game was still in question heading to the bottom of the seventh. He worked around a one-out walk to send the game to extra-innings.
"Ryan dug deep and put the team on his back," Head Coach
Jed Morris said of his senior starter. "This was a special outing for Ryan." It is Kehr's tenth career win. With that win, he moves into a tie for third in career wins.
Brady DiGiacomo singled to lead off the eighth and moved to third on a wild pitch and a scrifice bunt from
Shane Albertson.
Angelo Kelly reached on an infield single. to put runners on 1st and 3rd for freshman pinch-hitter
Freddy Yahn. With the infield in, Yahn hit a ball to first to score the run, and he reached on the error. Gorton then singled through the middle to drive in what would prove to be the game-winner.
Gorton now has 88 career RBI's and Kelly is at 117 career runs. Kelly is one run short of Eastern's career record.
The Colonels put a runner on with an infield single to lead off the eighth. Kehr struck out his seventh hitter of the game for the first out and retired another hitter on a pop-up to first. He was one strike away from a complete-game shutout, Brady Wing doubled to rigth-center to keep the Colonel hopes alive. Kehr closed out the game with a ground ball to short.
With the complete-game, Kehr improves to 2-1 on the year and drops his ERA to 1.80.
Eastern scored first in the second game, but the WIlkes offense scored single tallies in the second, fourth and and sixth innings and got a three-run homer from Nick Capozzi in the third inning.
The Eastern bats were quiet through the middle innings of the game.
"Their pitcher had a good fastball," Morris said of the loss in the series finale. "We had too many strikeouts and just could not get anything going, but I am proud of our team in that even in that struggle we were able to bring the tying run to the plate in the seventh."
The Eagles scored two runs and had two on in the final inning, but the rally fell short.
Eastern will host Arcadia on Tuesday before returning to MAC Freedom action at FDU-Florham next Friday.
