JACKSONVILLE, FL—Jacksonville moved to within a game of first place in the Atlantic Sun Conference baseball standings Friday night with a hard-fought 4-2 victory over visiting NJIT in the first of a three-game A-Sun weekend series between the teams.
 
With Friday's win, the Dolphins raised their A-Sun record to 11-5, which, coupled with a simultaneous 6-2 loss by conference-leading Kennesaw State, tightened the standings, with KSU now holding a 12-4 A-Sun record. North Florida is in third place at 10-6 and Stetson, which swept NJIT in three games last weekend before topping Kennesaw State on Friday, is 9-7 and tied with Lipscomb.
 
Friday's victory for JU was the 30th overall for the Dolphins, who have lost 18. NJIT, which has lost 13 consecutive A-Sun games, is 2-13 in conference play after winning its first two all-time Atlantic Sun games on April 1 and April 2. The Highlanders, 17-30 overall, have dropped four straight and seven of their last eight overall (all losses in A-Sun play sandwiched around a non-conference win at Fairfield on May 3).
 
All of the scoring in Friday night's game took place in the bottom of the seventh inning and in both halves of the eighth.
 
NJIT sophomore RHP Sean Lubreski (4-8) was perfect through the first 10 batters he faced and allowed only two singles—one on a bunt—in blanking Jacksonville through the first six innings. He was charged with three runs in  6.2 innings after leaving the game with two out, one run in and two men on base in the bottom of the seventh inning.
 
Redshirt sophomore LHP Brian Sondergard allowed the two inherited runners to score when the first batter he faced, LF Nathan Koslowski, a redshirt junior, tripled to left center field, bringing in two runs, which were charged to Lubreski.
 
Trailing 3-0, NJIT scored a pair of runs in the top of eighth inning, but JU made it 4-2 in the bottom half with a run off of Highlander reliever John Saviano.
 
Jacksonville's freshman closer, RHP Mike Cassala worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his 11th save. The win went to reliever Mike Schappell (4-2), another freshman, who gave up both NJIT runs and three hits in two innings of work.
 
Jacksonville's ace, sophomore Michael Baumann, the 2015 Atlantic Sun Pitcher of the Year and Freshman of the Year, got a no-decision after departing with no score through the first six innings. He kept the Highlanders off the board despite being outpitched by his NJIT counterpart, Lubreski.
 
Baumann allowed three hits and four walks in six innings, while Lubreski held JU scoreless on two hits and no walks in the same span.
 
Each team ended with six hits, five singles for each side, plus the big triple for Koslowski of the Dolphins and a double for NJIT's senior DH Stephan Halibej.
 
3B Tom Brady finished 2-for-4 and drove in both NJIT runs with one-out single in the top of the eighth inning and RF Austin Hays and 2B Dakota Julylia each got two hits for Jacksonville.
 
NJIT got two runners on base with one out in both the third and fourth innings, but couldn't get a run across against Jacksonville's Baumann.
 
The Dolphins finally broke the scoreless deadlock when Hays led off the bottom of the seventh with a single and moved up a base to second on a wild pitch. After a ground out and a walk, DH Connor Stephens singled home Hays with the game's first run. Lubreski got the second out, but departed with runners on second and third base and they scored on Koslowski's triple off of Sondergard.
 
Evan Pietronico of the Highlanders opened the eighth inning with a single, extending the longest active consecutive-game hitting streak in the Atlantic Sun to 14 games in a row. He was erased at second base on a fielder's choice ground out, but Halibej's 15th double of 2016 put two men in scoring position with one out. The freshman Brady then singled to bring in two runs, but that was all for NJIT, as Schappell got a strikeout and Brady was caught stealing for the third out.
 
Julylia, the ninth man in the JU batting order, led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a single and moved up on a Saviano balk. Julylia moved to third base on a passed ball and scored on a foul-out sacrifice fly to right field by CF Parker Perez.
 
The same two teams are scheduled to continue the A-Sun series on Saturday at 2 pm at Jacksonville's Sessions Stadium.