LITTLE FALLS, NJ - The NJIT baseball team won its fifth home game in seven chances this season, defeating UMBC 7-6 in America East action at Yogi Berra Stadium.
NJIT took its first, and only, lead of the game when captain
Luke Longo scored two as part of a four-run bottom of the seventh inning.
Veteran reliever
Joe Georgini took over from there, facing the minimum six UMBC hitters over the eighth and ninth innings to preserve the series opening victory.
UMBC scored two runs in each of the second and third innings to take an early 4-0 lead.
The Highlanders bats finally got going in the fifth inning when NJIT scored three times to make it a one-run game.
Ty Sallie scored the first two runs with a double to left field before
Cade Ladehoff made it 4-3 on a RBI single down the left field line.
UMBC added a pair of unearned runs in the seventh to go back ahead by three, but the Highlanders answered with the aforementioned four-run seventh.
Sallie led the inning off with a walk and advanced to second on a pinch hit single off the bat of
Cole Campbell. Sallie then scored on a UMBC error and Campbell came around to make it 6-5 on an RBI single for
Ray Ortiz.
After a
Kevin Putsky walk, Longo stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and his team down a run. The graduate student added another highlight to his tremendous career, singling to centerfield to score both Choi and Ortiz and give NJIT a lead it wouldn't let go of.
Georgini got a strikeout to begin the eighth and after walking a batter he was able to get a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning. The sixth-year team member needed just six pitches to get through a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
Aidan Kidd started on the mound for NJIT and settled in nicely after tough second and third innings. The senior struck out four and allowed just three hits in 6.1 innings before handing the ball to Georgini, who improved to 5-2 on the season with the win.
Ortiz led the NJIT offense with a pair of hits, while Longo and Sallie each knocked in two runs.
NJIT and UMBC will return to Yogi Berra Stadium on Saturday for game two of the three-game series. First pitch is slated for 6pm.
