Box score (Game 1)

Box score (Game 2)


WILSON, NC—Strong pitching was the order of the day for both teams Sunday, as the NJIT baseball team split a non-conference doubleheader against Presbyterian at Fleming Stadium. The hosts took the 9-inning opener, 3-2, while the Highlanders won the getaway game, 1-0, in seven innings behind a complete-game performance by Mark Leiter, Jr.
 
Indeed, the entire three-game series between the teams was dominated by the pitchers. Saturday night's opening game went to extra innings without an earned run crossing the plate. Tied at 1-1 through nine, the game was decided with the night's first earned run, scored by Presbyterian in the bottom of the 12th inning for a 2-1 win.
 
All the runs were earned on Sunday, but there weren't many to go around in 16 innings of play in the doubleheader.
 
Sunday's opening game began at 11 am on the day the clocks gained an hour for Daylight Saving Time. On top of the already early start, the teams had played a 12-inning game that didn't end until almost 11 pm the previous evening.
 
Despite the challenge, Presbyterian was on time, scoring a pair of runs in its half of the first inning. NJIT chipped its way back with single runs in the third and sixth innings to pull even at 2-2. But the home team scored in the bottom of the seventh and went on to claim.
 
The Highlanders salvaged a win in the finale of the hard-fought three-game series, using their only two hits of the nightcap to generate the only run of the game and claim a 1-0 victory behind a complete-game shutout for senior RHP Mark Leiter, Jr. 

The doubleheader split left Presbyterian's record at 10-7 on the season, while NJIT is 4-7.
 
Each team got eight hits in Game One Sunday, as Presbyterian starter Chandler Knox earned his second win in as many decisions. The junior right-hander went seven innings and allowed seven hits and two runs, while striking out six and walking none. Sophomore LHP Michael Ricchi, who recorded one out and grabbed the win Saturday night, pitched the last two innings behind Knox and recorded his first save of the season. Ricchi allowed one hit and struck out one in his two innings Sunday.
 
Sophomore RHP Bill VanMeerbeke (1-2) started and pitched well just two weekends removed from a serious injury when he had to leave a game at Oklahoma State after being hit in the face by a line drive. Against Presbyterian, VanMeerbeke was tagged with the loss, despite a solid 6.1 innings, with five hits, three runs, five strikeouts and a walk.
 
Freshman LHP Ian Bentley finished up for the Highlanders, tossing 1.2 scoreless innings, with three hits a walk and two strikeouts. Hit hard (7 runs in 2.2 innings) in his college debut against national power Oklahoma State, Bentley has not allowed a run in his last two appearances, covering 5.2 innings.
 
RF Brandon Paul and DH Cam McRae each got two hits for the Blue Hose in the opener, with Paul scoring two of his team's three runs and McRae hitting two doubles for his team's only extra-base hits.
 
Freshman SS Nick Swim went 3-for-4 to lead NJIT in hits, while classmate RF Jake Stern (1-for-3) hit a double and sophomore CF Ed Charlton (1-for-4) tripled for the Highlanders. Charlton and Stern each scored runs and freshman LF Nick Rabasco and junior 3B Matt Weckerle notched a run batted in apiece.
 
NJIT's win in the second game was a combination of tremendous pitching by Leiter (2-2) and timely hitting in one inning—the sixth—when the Highlanders scored the game's only run.
 
Leiter went the distance, scattering five hits and striking out seven without a walk in recording the first complete-game shutout of the season for NJIT.
 
Leiter, certainly one of the best pitchers in NJIT history and a key starting pitcher since he arrived as a freshman in 2010, appears to have taken a step forward in 2013 in the area of strikeouts-to-walks.
 
As a freshman, he had 60 strikeouts and 43 walks in 81.1 innings. In 2011, he improved to 103 strikeouts in 90.2 innings, but still walked 53. Last year, it was 95 strikeouts and 43 walks in 93.2 innings. In four starts this year, however, he has maintained the high strikeout totals (25 in 25.1 innings), but slashed the walks to just five, resulting in a stellar 25-to-5 strikeouts-to-walks ratio.
 
The losing pitcher against Leiter was RHP Bud Jeter (2-1), who allowed two hits and three walks in six innings, striking out six. Junior LHP Chad Sanders worked a scoreless, hitless inning of relief with one strikeout.
 
All of the hits in the second game for both teams were singles. LF Nate Chong, the Presbyterian leadoff man, went 2-for-3 and three teammates collected a hit apiece. NJIT had just two hits in the contest, but they came in the same inning to help build the only run. The Highlander hits were singles for Swim and 2B Mike Rampone. Weckerle had the game's only RBI, driving in Rabasco with a ground out.
 
In Game One, Presbyterian got its two first-inning runs with a two-out rally. With the bases empty and two out, 1B Billy Zebedis was hit by a VanMeerbeke pitch. Paul followed with a single to right field and the next batter, CF Aaron Preston, also singled, driving in Zebedis with the first run. McRae then doubled to left center, driving home the second run of the inning.
 
The Blue Hose had four hits in the opening inning, but they got just one more off of VanMeerbeke over the remainder of his 6.1-inning outing.
 
With VanMeerbeke holding the fort, NJIT got a run back in the third inning. Stern led off with a double and later scored on Rabasco's fielder's choice-RBI. The Highlanders got even in the sixth, thanks to a one-out triple to left center for Charlton, followed by Weckerle's run-scoring single.
 
The score stayed at 2-2 until the bottom of the seventh inning, when Paul walked leading off and moved up a base on a sacrifice bunt ahead of another RBI double for McRae, the sophomore designated hitter for the Blue Hose. Bentley came on for VanMeerbeke at that time and shut down Presbyterian, but Ricchi, who started the top of the eighth inning in place of Knox, also blanked the Highlanders to secure the 3-2 win.
 
NJIT scored the only run of the nightcap in the sixth inning. Rampone led off with a single, but was erased at second base after sacrifice bunt by Rabasco, who was safe at first. Swim then hit an infield single and Charlton walked to load the bases. Weckerle's ground ball up the middle was fielded by Billy Motroni, who stepped on second base for the force out, but what would be the only run for either team crossed home on the play. Jeter, the Presbyterian starter, then notched a strikeout to halt the threat, leaving two on base.
 
Presbyterian managed five hits off of Leiter, but the Blue Hose never scored and they never left more than one runner on base in any of the seven innings. Their biggest threat likely came in the first inning, when Chong singled leading off. He was out on a fielder's choice that left Motroni as the runner on first base. Motroni advance a base on a wild pitch and then Zabedis singled. However, Motroni, who went to third on the hit, was thrown out at home on a throw by Rabasco, NJIT's left fielder.
 
The home team did not get another base runner until the fifth inning, when Preston led off and stole second after one out. However, he was erased at third base on a fielder's choice out back to the pitcher.
 
Presbyterian threatened to tie the score in the sixth, when Chong hit a one-out single, stole second and went to third on a wild pitch. However, Leiter induced an inning-ending pop out from Zebedis, the number three hitter and best player for the Blue Hose. Zebedis, a junior slugger, was a National College Baseball Writers Association all-America honoree as a freshman and a preseason all-America pick by the same group in 2012.
 
Presbyterian got a two-out hit in the bottom of the seventh inning, but nothing came of it when Leiter popped up pinch hitter Robby Swab to end the game.
 
Having played all of its games on the road and as far away as Stillwater, Oklahoma, NJIT will continue as the visiting team until the March 20 home opener. However, the schedule will involve a good deal less mileage, beginning with a game scheduled for 3 pm on Tuesday in Teaneck, NJ, at Fairleigh Dickinson.