Plymouth Meeting, Pa. – Holden deJong was stellar over seven innings of work, allowing just one earned run and striking out four, but the NJIT baseball team suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat to Villanova on Friday afternoon.

How it Happened
NJIT scored a run in the first inning for the 10^th time this season, getting off to another early advantage. With two outs and nobody on base, Ray Ortiz ripped a double to keep the inning alive. Andrew Eppinger followed up with a double of his own, splitting the alley in left-center to drive home the game's first run.

deJong kept the Wildcat offense at bay until the third, when an RBI single from Jason Neff knotted the game up at 1-1. That is where the score would stay for the remainder of the redshirt junior's outing, as he cruised through the fourth and fifth innings and danced out of two-out trouble in the sixth.

deJong would escape a bases loaded jam in the seventh to finish off his day, inducing a ground ball to third base to cap his outing at 105 pitches. Anthony Anzaldi relieved deJong and worked a clean eighth inning, but the Wildcats would walk it off in the ninth after another single from Neff.

Up Next
The Highlanders and Wildcats play game two of their series on Saturday afternoon with first pitch set for 1 p.m.