Game One Box Score / Game Two Box Score

BUTLER – A four-run sixth inning in Game Two helped the Clarion University baseball team break a 1-1 tie and get a 5-1 win and a split of a doubleheader vs. California Monday at Butler's Pullman Park.

 

Clarion (8-21 overall, 6-8 PSAC West), which dropped the first game 8-0, used five consecutive singles after one out in the sixth to get the victory for Scott Berkes, who pitched well in a spot start.

 

Berkes, making his first start since March 11 and his first appearance on the mound since April 3, threw seven strong innings for the complete game. He allowed one first-inning earned run on five hits and two walks – both in the first inning – and struck out three. He retired nine in a row from the second inning to the fifth and 16 of the final 20 Cal batters he faced.

 

Berkes helped himself with a game-tying RBI single in the first inning, and then his teammates came through in a big way in the four-run sixth.

 

With one out in the sixth, Eric Grejda, Bill Hasson, Jon Roncolato, Dane Dobson and Matt Rossi had consecutive singles with Dobson's base hit down the left-field line scoring two runs and Rossi's base hit to left scoring one. Josh Beimel added a sacrifice fly after the Rossi hit to set the final score.

 

Hasson was 2-for-3 in the game, as Clarion had eight base hits. Beimel, who led off the game with a single for the Golden Eagles before scoring on the Berkes single in the first, was 1-for-2 with an RBI and the run scored.

 

Clarion, which remains right in the thick of the PSAC playoff race with the split, needed the Game Two victory after Cal roughed up Mark White in Game One to get the 8-0 win.

 

White, who threw the first three innings scoreless, was touched up for one run in the fourth, four more in the fifth and two in the sixth (Cal scored three times in all in the sixth). His final line was 5 1/3 innings, seven runs, six earned, on nine hits and two walks while striking out three.

 

Corbin Ragley was touched up for a run in the sixth as well and went 2/3 of an inning allowing two hits and a walk. Bill Ruhland threw a scoreless seventh for Clarion.

 

Berkes led Clarion's offense going 2-for-3 collecting half of the Golden Eagles four hits, Grejda and Seth Peterson also had singles.

 

Clarion returns to action at 1 p.m. Tuesday when it travels to Erie to face Mercyhurst in a doubleheader that will feature the Golden Eagles as the home team, the same as Monday.

 

NOTES – At 6-8 in the PSAC West Clarion is mathematically in sixth place with the top four making the playoffs. But the Golden Eagles, who have played the fewest games of any of the teams in the West with 14, are a game ahead of IUP (7-9) in the loss column and three games better than Gannon (9-11) in the loss column. Clarion is also tied in the loss column with California (7-8), although the Vulcans did beat the Golden Eagles three out of four … In addition to Tuesday's games with Mercyhurst Clarion has a pair of doubleheaders with IUP this weekend before finishing the regular season with a pair of twinbills with Lock Haven April 29 and April 30.