ST. DAVIDS, Pa. - Behind a career day from John Westfield and an early offensive outburst, Eastern Baseball grabbed an early lead and held off a late rally in a 6-4 win over Valley Forge. The Eagles scored six runs in the first four innings, and Westfield threw five brilliant frames to secure Eastern's ninth win of the year.

Westfield (1-6) recorded a career-high eight strikeouts in the first win of his collegiate career. Furthermore, he retired the first 10 batters he faced, six via the strikeout, and allowed just four baserunners over the course of his appearance. He threw an efficient 62 pitches, while also inducing six flyouts and one groundout.

After a quick 1-2-3 inning in the top of the first for Westfield, the Eagles' offense went to work in the bottom half of the frame. Evan Barks and Matt McHale led off the inning with singles on back-to-back pitches, and Joe Paradise worked a four-pitch walk to lead the bases with nobody out. Sean Cottrell was hit by a pitch in the following at-bat, plating Barks for the 1-0 lead. Later in the inning, a bloop single in shallow right field from Brian Lang scored McHale to put the Eagles ahead 2-0.

Over the next two innings, Westfield struck out four more batters to keep the Eagles' two-run lead intact. In the bottom of the third, after a David Hunsberger double, Mark Cruser followed with one of his own to increase Eastern's advantage to 3-0. Valley Forge (11-17) put their first two baserunners on in the fourth on a fielding errors and an infield single, but Westfield was able to escape the jam.

Jason Hall walked to start the fourth inning, before advancing to second on a wild pitch. After moving to third on a groundout, Hall scored on a McHale RBI groundout to shortstop to make it 4-0. With two outs, Paradise roped a double to deep left field, and Cottrell followed with a laser shot over the center field, his second home run of the season, to increase Eastern's advantage to 6-0.

Following a scoreless fifth and sixth innings, Valley Forge came roaring back in the seventh with four runs on five hits and one Eastern fielding error. However, the Eagles recorded two straight outs following the Patriots' fourth run to keep their lead.

In the final two frames, Riley Kiebach and Cottrell combined to shut the door. Kiebach recorded a pair of strikeouts in a scoreless eighth, and Cottrell recorded his second save of the season with a perfect ninth.

Cottrell finished 2-for-3 at the dish with three RBIs, while McHale and Barks each finished with two hits in five at-bats. Five other Eagles recorded at least one hit in the victory.

Eastern (9-24) returns to conference play this weekend with a single, nine-inning contest against Hood. First pitch at The Yard is scheduled for 3:30 pm on Friday.