Box score

CLINTON, SC—Presbyterian built a 3-1 lead in the opening innings and then survived a ninth-inning threat from visiting NJIT to come away with a 4-3 victory Sunday and a three-game sweep of the weekend baseball series between the teams.
 
The Blue Hose, who began the season 0-8 (four losses to nationally-ranked teams), are 8-10 and have won seven of their last eight, including the three games against NJIT. Presbyterian swept a doubleheader from the Highlanders (4-5) on Saturday, 6-1 and 7-1, and then held on for Sunday's 4-3 win.
 
NJIT scored a run in the top of the first inning Sunday, but Presbyterian answered with two runs of its own in the bottom of the frame and then tacked on single runs in the bottom of the second and fourth innings.
 
The Highlanders picked up two runs in the top of the sixth and got runners on first and third with one out in the top of the ninth before Blue Hose reliever Gabe Grammer induced a game-ending double play to earn his fifth save of the season. Grammer, a senior, began the game in center field and went 2-for-4 at the plate.
 
The winning pitcher for Presbyterian was sophomore LHP Chad Sanders (1-1), who pitched the first 5.2 innings and allowed four hits and three runs (two earned), while striking out two without a walk. Senior RHP Buck Mosteller relieved Sanders and pitched 2.1 innings of scoreless one-hit ball before Grammer closed out the ninth with a two-hit, albeit scoreless, frame.
 
NJIT junior RHP Mark Leiter, Jr. (2-1) started and went the distance for his first complete game of the season. He allowed 11 hits in eight innings, with four walks and seven strikeouts in allowing four runs.
 
Four different Presbyterian batters—Grammer, SS Billy Motroni, 1B Kenny Bryant, and LF Nathan Chong—collected two hits apiece. Grammer and Bryant each had doubles to account for the only extra-base hits of the game for either team and Motroni, a freshman, added his sixth sacrifice bunt of the year, plus a sacrifice fly. He drove in two runs. Chong stole three bases for Presbyterian, which was successful on four of five tries.
 
NJIT, which reached double-figure scoring three times in its opening six games, managed five runs combined in the three-game series with Presbyterian, including three on Sunday. Two Highlander seniors—RF James D'Aloia and C Bryan Bleakley—each collected a pair of singles to lead NJIT's hitting on Sunday.
 
The Highlanders picked up an unearned run in the opening frame, as freshman 2B Mike Rampone reached on an error leading off. He moved up one base each on the next two outs and then scored on a wild pitch by Sanders, the Presbyterian starter.
 
The Blue Hose answered immediately in the bottom of the first, when Grammer doubled leading off and Motroni dropped down a bunt single and then went to second on a wild pitch. NJIT's Leiter got an out, but RF Tony Micklon tied the score with an infield single that also moved Motroni to third ahead of an RBI double for Bryant, making it 2-1, PC.
 
The Blue Hose added another run in the second, when Chong singled, stole second, went to third on a balk and scored on Motroni's sacrifice fly.
 
Chong later scored the fourth, and final, Presbyterian run in the bottom of the fourth. He led off with a walk and then moved to third on a single by 2B Andrew Williams. After a strikeout, Motroni picked up an RBI on a squeeze bunt that brought Chong home from third base.
 
NJIT's Leiter would blank the Blue Hose over the last four innings, allowing the Highlanders to come back, but they ultimately fell short.
 
Down 4-1, they got back two runs in the top of the sixth inning. After an out, D'Aloia singled and Tom Bouck was hit by a pitch. Another out moved D'Aloia to third and Bouck to second. D'Aloia scored on a wild pitch and then Bleakley singled home Bouck, closing the gap to 4-3 before the half-inning ended on the third out.
 
With Leiter keeping it close, the Highlanders got a leadoff single by DJ Roche to open the ninth inning. Bleakley then bunted Roche, representing the tying run, to second and Jeff Pizzi singled, setting up a first-and-third situation with one out. However, the threat and the game ended when Presbyterian's Grammer got 3B Jeff Peterson to hit into a shortstop-to-first base double play.
 
NJIT will enter the big time of college baseball when it visits powerful Wake Forest on Wednesday for a 4 pm game in Winston-Salem, NC. The Demon Deacons are 14-4, with 13 straight wins, most recently having swept a three-game series from Atlantic Coast Conference rival Maryland this weekend.
 
Wake will host Georgia Southern on Tuesday before entertaining the Highlanders a day later.
 
The 13-game winning streak, tied for the second-longest in Division I this season, is the longest for Wake Forest since it won 15 in a row in 1999.