Beaver Baseball Snaps Their Losing Streak In Doubleheader With Fayette

Monaca, Pa 

Evan Pinchot - The Penn State Beaver baseball team hosted the men of Penn State Fayette on Tuesday, splitting their doubleheader matchup to snap Beaver's losing streak. 

In game one of Tuesday's doubleheader, Fayette would be in the driver's seat from the early innings. After a scoreless first inning from both teams, Fayette put together an 8 run rally in the top of the second inning, taking a commanding lead that Beaver was never able to recover from. Throughout this game, Beaver was only able to tally 4 total hits, making a comeback against Fayette's seemingly insurmountable early lead impossible. It seemed like this game was over early, as Beaver eventually walked away from game one with another loss to add to their record by a final score of 12-0. 

Game two proved to be a much tougher battle between Beaver and Fayette, as this game looked as if it could have gone either way up until the final out was recorded. With Senior ace Justyn Francona (New Brighton, Pa / New Brighton High School), Beaver started to put it all together from the very start of game two. After coming out of the first inning with Beaver down 2-1, both teams would remain scoreless until a big offensive boom by Beaver in the fourth inning, where they would string together 6 runs for their biggest rally of the day. Coming out of the fourth inning up 7-4, they would once again strike in the fifth inning, adding 3 more runs to make it a 9-5 game. Going into the final two innings, Francona showed signs of running out of steam as he would give up 2 runs in the sixth innings before heading into the seventh and final innings, where he he came close to blowing Beaver's lead before eventually recording Beaver's final out and securing a 1 run victory over Fayette by a final score of 10-9. 

With their win in game two of Tuesday's doubleheader, Beaver was able to finally snap their 11 game losing streak. Two players, Senior Justyn Francona, with his great performance on the mound as well as a 3-4 day at the plate with a home run and 4 RBIs, and Sophomore Eric Kim (John's Creek, Ga / Chattahoochee), who also shined in game two with a 3-3 performance that included 2 RBIs and 2 runs, helped to propel Beaver to their win in game two on Tuesday afternoon. Beaver now holds a 4-18 overall record, with a 2-18 conference record. Beaver will return to action on Wednesday, April 21, as they will travel to Penn State Fayette for an evening showdown. Game time is set for 6 pm.