JACKSONVILLE, FL—Franco Guardascione's two-out single with runners on second and third base in the bottom of the ninth inning brought home the game-winning run for Jacksonville, which walked off with an 11-10 victory over visiting NJIT Saturday afternoon in the second game of a three-game Atlantic Sun Conference baseball series between the teams.
 
The win raised the second-place Dolphins to 12-5 in Atlantic Sun play, allowing them to keep pace with first-place Kennesaw State, which is 13-4 in the A-Sun after topping Stetson on Saturday. JU, which edged the Highlanders 4-2 on Friday, owns a 31-18 record overall.
 
Saturday's defeat drops NJIT to 2-14 in the Atlantic Sun, with 14 consecutive conference losses since the Highlanders won their first two A-Sun games vs. USC Upstate. The Highlanders, who have lost five in a row overall, all in A-Sun play, are 17-31 in all games.
 
With four conference games remaining (one more at Jacksonville on Sunday and three at home next weekend vs. North Florida), NJIT is out of contention for a berth in the six-team A-Sun postseason championship tournament. If the Highlanders win all four remaining four conference games, they will have six A-Sun wins for the season, while sixth-place Florida Gulf Coast already has eight A-Sun wins.
 
The Highlanders, in their first season in the Atlantic Sun, which ranked among the Top 10 Division I baseball conferences nationally in 2015, can still escape the cellar, however. They trail USC Upstate by one game in the standings.
 
NJIT, which plays its final A-Sun road game of 2016 at Jacksonville on Sunday, is 0-11 in Atlantic Sun away games and Saturday's defeat at JU marked the fourth walk-off conference loss for the Highlanders.   In all conference games, A-Sun opponents have scored the game-winning run against NJIT in the sixth inning or later eight times in 14 conference wins over the Highlanders.
 
Only one of the eight pitchers for either team got through Saturday's slug fest unscathed and he was the winning pitcher for Jacksonville. The fourth of four hurlers for the Dolphins, redshirt senior Jeff Tanner (4-0) got credit for the win after holding NJIT scoreless on a hit and a walk over the last 2.1 innings.
 
The loss was charged to NJIT's fourth and final pitcher, freshman LHP Chris Gibbons (0-2), who allowed the walk-off run on two hits and a walk in 1.2 innings.
 
Neither starting pitcher was effective, with Jacksonville's Nathan Disch and NJIT's Ian Bentley each allowing seven runs in 3.1-inning no-decisions.
 
Each team scored at least one run and as many as three through the first four innings that ended with the score tied, 7-7.
 
The fifth inning saw NJIT stuck with the first zero of the game in the top half and Jacksonville take its first lead of the day, 8-7, with a run in the bottom half. The Highlanders drew even with a run in the top of the sixth, but the Dolphins reclaimed the advantage with a run in the bottom. NJIT added two more runs in the seventh for a 10-9 lead that was erased on a JU run in the bottom of the seventh that forged a 10-10 tie.
 
The eighth inning was the only scoreless one of the day in both halves and Tanner blanked the Highlanders in the top of the ninth, setting the stage for the game-winning dramatics in the bottom of the frame.
 
Gibbons, who retired all three batters he faced in the eighth inning after entering with a runner on second base and no one out, got a ground out to start the bottom of the ninth. However, JU shortstop JJ Gould (3-for-4), who had belted his ninth home run of the season earlier, a leadoff shot in the bottom of the seventh that tied the score at 10-10, hit a one-out double in the ninth.
 
After a walk and a fly out, both Dolphin base runners moved up a base on a wild pitch. Guardascione, who also homered earlier, then ended the game with a walk-off single into left field.
 
Jacksonville finished with 15 hits, including six doubles and three home runs (Gould, Guardascione, and the second of the season for LF Michael Babb). The Dolphins also drew 10 bases-on-balls, stole two bases and were the beneficiaries of three NJIT balks.
 
NJIT had 14 hits, with two doubles and three home runs. Jacksonville also committed five fielding errors, which led to two unearned Highlander runs.
 
Every starter in the Jacksonville batting order had at least one hit, topped by Gould's 3-for-4. CF Parker Perez, Guardascione, 2B Dakota Julylia, and Babb all had two hits each, with Guardascione driving in three runs and Perez and Gould each bringing home a pair.
 
NJIT's red-hot sophomore LF Evan Pietronico was 3-for-5, including his team-leading fourth home run of the year. Pietronico, who extended the longest active consecutive-game hitting streak in the A-Sun to 15 with Saturday's performance, drove in a season-best five runs and now has 43 RBI, the most by a Highlander since DJ Roche (Class of 2014) drove in 44 in 2011.
 
With Pietronico batting leadoff, the next two men in the NJIT order, CF Jesse Uttendorfer and DH Stephan Halibej, each finished the day 2-for-5 and each hit his third homer of the season. Freshman SS Justin Etts was 2-for-4.
 
C Edgar Badaraco (1-for-2) and Etts hit the NJIT doubles.
 
Uttendorfer hit a one-out solo home run in the top of the first inning to give NJIT a 1-0 lead. RF Matt McKinnon and Etts each picked up runs batted in in the second inning and Halibej's one-out solo home run in the third frame provided NJIT's fourth run. It was the 10th career home run for the senior DH.
 
The three Highlander runs in the fourth inning came on one swing, Pietronico's one-out home run. Uttendorfer singled for the Highlanders' sixth-inning tally and Pietronico knocked in his team's last two scores of the day with a two-out single in the top of the seventh inning.
 
The teams will wrap up the three-game series and NJIT will play its final away game of 2016 with a noon game on Sunday.