Box score

DURHAM, NC—The NJIT baseball team built a 17-2 lead in Sunday's series rubber game at North Carolina Central, but then the Eagles rallied for three runs in the eighth and 10 in the ninth, forcing the Highlanders to hold on for a 17-15 non-conference victory at historic Durham Athletic Park.
 
By holding, the Highlanders won the series, 2-1, having lost the opening game of Saturday's doubleheader before winning the nightcap and then taking the series with the Sunday win. In doing so, NJIT has its first 2-1 three-game start to a season since beginning Division I competition in 2007.
 
The Highlanders began that season 0-4 before getting a win and their best three-game start at the Division I level had been 1-2 in 2008, when they played in a tournament at USC Upstate and lost to the hosts and George Washington, before beating Tennessee-Martin in Game Three. NJIT started out the 2011 season at 0-3.
 
Sunday couldn't have started in more promising fashion for the Highlanders, who had split on Saturday, dropping an 8-5 decision in the nine-inning opener and then trouncing their hosts in the seven-inning nightcap, 15-2.
 
Picking up on Sunday where it had left off in Saturday's 15-run Game Two, NJIT scored four in the first, three in the second and then single runs in each of the next three innings, before erupting for seven in the top of the sixth inning for a 17-1 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth.
 
The Eagles picked up another run in the sixth off of NJIT starter Mark Leiter, Jr. who wrapped up his first start of the season with 6 innings and 2 runs on 2 hits and 3 walks, with 8 strikeouts.
 
RHP Jake Porcello, a sophomore transfer who played his freshman season at Seton Hall in 2010, relieved Leiter and pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning in his Highlanders debut and the score would remain 17-2 going to the bottom of the eighth.
 
Things did not go so well in the eighth for Porcello, who was touched up for three runs on four hits and a walk, but he finished the frame and his work for the day with a 17-5 lead.
 
After a scoreless ninth for NJIT, North Carolina Central (1-6) exploded for 10 runs on seven hits, three walks and two hit batsmen by a procession of four Highlander relievers. The first three relievers in the inning couldn't get an out, but the fourth, sophomore RHP Matt Coughlin, finally closed the door with his second career save.
 
Coughlin, who entered with no one out, a runner on first and a 17-14 lead, got an out and then allowed a double, putting runners on second and third. After a hit-by-pitch to load the bases, Coughlin got an out on a fielder's choice, but NCCU's 10th run of the inning crossed the plate. He then struck out Tyson Simpson, Jr. to end the game, stranding the potential tying runs on base.
 
Leiter, an all-Great West Conference second-team pick after leading the GWC with 103 strikeouts overall in 2011, got his first win of 2012 with the strong six-inning effort against North Carolina Central and Coughlin, a swingman on last year's staff, got the save in the team's first opportunity of the new season.
 
The losing pitcher was North Carolina Central starter Jacob Russell, a sophomore right-hander, who fell to 0-2 after allowing 7 runs (4 earned) in 2 innings. The next two Eagles hurlers were touched up for 10 runs in 4 innings, but Sam Fulmer, the winning pitcher in relief in Saturday's opening game, tossed two innings of scoreless one-hit ball and Michael Romano, a junior lefty, blanked NJIT in the ninth inning.
 
NJIT rapped out 16 hits on the day, including four doubles and two home runs.
 
One of the doubles and one of the home runs came from senior catcher Bryan Bleakley, who was 3-for-4, with 2 runs scored and two driven in. Bleakley, who batted .319 with 16 doubles, six home runs and 29 RBI as a sophomore in 2010, but had a streaky 2011 that ended at .286, with 10 doubles, 5 homers and 20 RBI, has opened 2012 with 3 doubles, a homer and 8 runs batted in for the opening three games.
 
Another double on Sunday came from senior LF James D'Aloia, who had homered twice in Saturday's doubleheader split. D'Aloia, who missed the entire 2010 season with a knee injury suffered in warmups before the opening game, was 3-for-4 on Sunday, with 3 RBI. He was 6-for-10 in the series, with 2 doubles, 2 home runs and 8 runs batted in. Two of D'Aloia's three runs batted in on Sunday came on his second-inning double.
 
Sophomore LF Matt Weckerle, freshman 2B Andrew Benjamin, and freshman SS Brian Keane all rapped out two hits apiece, as did transfer Tom Bouck, who homered and drove in five runs. Weckerle and RF Jeff Pizzi (1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBI) also had sacrifice flies for the Highlanders.
 
Tom Bouck, the younger brother of senior four-year Highlander John Bouck, spent his freshman year at Saint Peter's in 2010, before transferring to NJIT and sitting out 2011 under NCAA rules for Division I transfer rules. Tom, 1-for-5 with an RBI in Saturday's opening twinbill, was 2-for-5 on Sunday, including a three-run jack to key the four-run first inning, which also included Bleakley's solo shot. Tom Bouck also has four walks and an HBP in the three games for a .571 on-base percentage.
 
After the four-run opening frame with the homers for Tom Bouck and Bleakley, NJIT got three in the second, keyed by D'Aloia's two-run double and Weckerle's sacrifice fly.
 
Pizzi's sac fly scored Jeff Peterson with NJIT's run in the third and Bleakley singled to knock in Weckerle, who led off the fourth inning with a single. In the fifth inning, Ed Charlton (3 runs) reached on a fielder's choice, stole second and then scored when Pizzi singled with two outs.
 
The Highlanders then scored seven runs in the top of the sixth for a 17-1 lead. Seemingly icing on the cake at the time, nearly every run would be needed in order for NJIT have a happy bus ride home from North Carolina.
 
Bouck flied out to lead off the sixth, followed by a DJ Roche single and a Bleakley double. Benjamin, who had come on as a pinch hitter in the previous inning, then doubled to score Roche and Bleakley. Keane singled and Charlton was on with another fielder's choice. After a wild pitch, D'Aloia singled home another run and Weckerle followed with a run-scoring single of his own.
 
With NJIT having batted around, Bouck doubled for two more runs with two out and after the third out, the Highlanders had seven runs on seven hits.
 
NCCU, which had a run in the first inning on the second home run of the year for CF Luis Diaz (4-for-5) got its second run in the bottom of the sixth on an RBI single for 3B Troy Marrow (3-for-5).
 
Marrow later singled home a run in the eighth inning, which also saw a run-scoring single for Romano, who was the DH and also his team's final pitcher, and a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch for RF Alex Moore, III.
 
North Carolina Central sent 14 men to the plate in its 10-run, 7-hit ninth inning. Six Eagles finished the day with two runs batted in each, before Coughlin finally nailed down the win for NJIT.
 
NJIT, which got plenty of offense (37 runs in 25 innings over three games), made only two errors and got starting pitching was good considering it was the first game action after a winter without competition, as the three starters—Leiter, Tripp Davis, and DJ Roche combined to yield eight earned runs in 17 innings (4.23 ERA). However, the bullpen ERA was a bloated 21.86, as the relievers allowed 17 earned runs in a small sample of seven innings. Five of the eight relievers in the opening weekend were making their first appearances as Highlanders and four were freshmen in their college debuts.

The series was played at Durham Athletic Park, home of minor league baseball from 1926 to 2002 and the primary setting of the famous 1988 motion picture Bull Durham. It is now used as the home field for North Carolina Central baseball, among other things. The AAA minor league Durham Bulls play in a newer park in town, but still play occasional special games in the old ballpark.
 
The Highlanders are off until next weekend, when they head south again for a three-game series at Delaware State in Dover. The series begins with a Saturday, March 3 doubleheader with a 1 pm start.