Posted on April 12, 2007
In a surprising comeback, the Longwood Lancers scored six runs in a game-changing fifth inning to take a 7-6 lead over the Dukes on their way to an 8-6 victory during a non-conference play Tuesday in Mauck Stadium.
The Diamond Dukes paced themselves offensively in the first four innings, but saw their 6-1 lead evaporate when the Lancers belted three home runs in the fifth inning to take the lead.
Senior pitcher Jacob Cook pitched 4 and 1/3 innings before being replaced by redshirt-senior Allie Swanson. Cook allowed four runs on five hits, and threw five strikeouts.
After a two-run shot by Longwood’s Robbie Bailey, Allie Swanson came in and allowed three runs on three hits in 2/3 of an inning. Home runs hit by Tyler Childress and Phil Cerreto accounted for the Lancer’s last three runs.
Sophomore Matt Townsend injured his knee and was forced to come out of the game after chasing down Cerreto’s two-run bomb at the fence. Townsend went 2-for-2 with a run and an RBI before he was taken out.
“Tough breaks like that have been getting us all year long,” Townsend said. “We’ve had a lot of early leads this year and we just haven’t been able to roll with it.”
Tuesday’s loss was the fourth in a row for JMU, after being swept by Northeastern in an in-conference series at home. There were signs early that Madison was coming alive against Longwood.
“We were sitting pretty well the [first few] innings,” Kulbacki said. “We just had one bad inning today that was the difference in the game. The sad part about it is that we didn’t respond to it.”
James Madison fell behind early 1-0, but responded in the second, third, and fourth innings with two runs in each to take a 6-1 lead into the fifth inning.
Senior Davis Stoneburner laid down a sacrifice bunt that sent redshirt-freshman Steven Caseres to third base in the second inning. Redshirt-senior Mitchell Moses followed, driving Caseres in on an RBI single to get the Dukes rolling. Townsend added an RBI single in the same inning that drove in redshirt-sophomore Lee Bujakowski.
In the third inning, sophomore Kellen Kulbacki hit a solo home run to extend the lead to 3-1. Madison scored one more run in the inning when Moses hit his second RBI single of the day.
The fourth inning saw freshman Alex Foltz hit an RBI single, and Kulbacki hit an RBI double to make the JMU lead 6-1.
However, the fifth inning spelled disaster for the Dukes, as Longwood matched JMU’s total offensive production in one inning to take the lead 7-6.
“When you have a bad inning you just have to forget about it. We lost the lead [in the fifth inning], but the biggest thing was we just didn’t add on and our offense struggled for the rest of the game,” Kulbacki said.
“Trying to play a complete ball game is our goal. It just seems like some days we come out and certain things are working but other things aren’t,” Townsend said.
Madison produced six runs in Tuesday’s contest after failing to do so in eight previous games, dating back to a 4-3 loss at Richmond March 28. Tuesday’s concentrated offensive production was more than JMU has become accustomed to, but proved futile in the loss.
“Our offense has been pretty quiet as of late,” Assistant coach Jay Sullenger said. “I don’t think we [had] scored six runs in four or five games. But baseball’s a game of nine innings, and today we won the first four but didn’t win the last five.”
JMU head coach Spanky McFarland served a one game suspension Tuesday for his ejection in Sunday’s game against Northeastern.
