LEXINGTON, Va. – The Washington and Lee baseball team split an ODAC doubleheader with Eastern Mennonite on Saturday afternoon at Cap'n Dick Smith Field. EMU's sophomore leftfielder Ben Wise (Staunton, Va./Robert E. Lee) hit a solo homerun in the top of the seventh to lead the Royals to a 3-2 win in game one, while the Generals recovered to win the second game, 8-4.
In the first game, after 3.5 scoreless innings, the Generals took a 1-0 lead off an RBI single from sophomore first baseman Hunter Serenbetz (Stamford, Ct./Taft School). The Royals retook the lead with two runs in the top of the fifth, but W&L responded by tying the contest in the bottom of the fifth off a sacrifice fly from sophomore John Ditore (Shoreline, Wash./Bishop Blanchet). However, Wise then hit the aforementioned homerun and the Generals went in order to conclude the game.
Ditore went 2-for-2 with one RBI in the first game, while Serenbetz was 1-for-3 with one RBI. Sophomore righthander Chuck Davidson (Winnetka, Ill./New Trier) tossed all seven innings as he fell to 4-2, giving up four hits and three earned runs.
In the second game, W&L held a 5-1 lead after six innings until Eastern Mennonite used four hits to put up three runs in the seventh and cut the Blue and White's edge to 5-4. However, the Generals pulled away in the bottom of the eighth as freshman leftfielder Anthony Cardona (Lower Gwynedd, Pa./Lower Chestnut Hill), junior centerfielder Terrence McKelvey (East Islip, N.Y./East Islip) and senior rightfielder James Madden (Dallas, Texas/Highland Park) each registered an RBI single en route to the 8-4 final margin.
McKelvey led W&L in the nightcap with a 3-for-4 performance from the plate with one RBI, while Madden totaled two hits in five at-bats with two RBI and Cardona was 2-for-3 with one RBI. Junior righthander Brendan Clark (Rockville, Md./Richard Montgomery) improved to 4-1 as he hurled five innings of five-hit ball and allowed just one earned run. EMU (10-30) was led by Wise, who combined to hit 3-for-7 with a homerun three RBI over two games.
Sophomore righthander Jesse Baker (Virginia Beach, Va./First Colonial) picked up the game-one victory, pitching a complete game and giving up eight hits and two earned runs. Freshman righthander Michael Moles (Waynesboro, Va./Stuart Draft) was saddled with the loss in the nightcap. Moles allowed nine hits and two earned runs in 7.0 innings of work.
The Generals (21-10, 10-8) will be the fifth seed in the 2008 ODAC Tournament and will take on the second-seed squad (still TBD) on Thursday at 3:00 pm at Lynchburg City Stadium.
