ST. DAVIDS, Pa. - After rain on Saturday forced a postponement, Eastern Baseball wrapped up its series with Messiah on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at The Yard.
Joe Paradise had a tremendous day at the plate for Eastern, but the Eagles failed to come away with a victory, dropping 18-8 and 6-3 decisions to the Falcons.
In five official plate appearance, Paradise finished 4-for-5. The Staten Island, N.Y. native recorded a pair of singles, a two-run double in game one, and a line drive home run to center field, the fourth of his career, in game two. Paradise also played a strong defensive game at first base, including a diving grab on a pop-up bunt in the nightcap.
"Paradise has been swinging it well and continued to do so today," Eastern Head Coach
Scott Renauro said. "He's really been harping on not trying to do too much and simply put good at-bats together. Obviously the home run had was a good at-bat, but the single to right was equally as solid of an approach."
The Eagles (6-19, 3-10) took the lead early in game two on a
Sean Cottrell RBI groundout in the first inning and a
David Hunsberger RBI single in the second. However, the Falcons responded with four runs of their own in the top of the third on an Evan Wagaman two-run home run and a Ryan Friend two-run double to take a 4-2 lead.
Paradise led off the fourth inning with a drive over the right-center field fence, cutting the Messiah lead to 4-3. Hunsberger doubled with two outs, but the Eagles were unable to push the tying run across. The Falcons added two more insurance runs in the top of the sixth to secure the doubleheader sweep.
Cottrell started the scoring in game one of the doubleheader as well, plating Hunsberger with an RBI single in the bottom of the first inning. After Messiah (10-12-1, 7-6) tied it at 1-1 on a Thomas Zeigler RBI single, Paradise singled home
Brian Lang in the bottom of the second to put Eastern back ahead 2-1. After a four-run third inning for the Falcons, Paradise came through again with a two-run double to right-center to make it a 5-4 Messiah lead. However, that was as close as the Eagles would get as the Falcons scored 13 unanswered runs to take control of the contest en route to a double-digit victory.
The Eagles will be back in action on Tuesday in non-conference action against Rosemont at Heuser Park. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 pm.
