CLARION, Pa. --- The Golden Eagle baseball team dropped a midweek non-conference game on Tuesday afternoon, falling by an 8-4 score to Penn State – DuBois at Memorial Stadium. Clarion rallied from a pair of early deficits but could not come all the way back against the Nittany Lions.
DuBois led by scores of 3-0 and 4-3 in the nine-inning contest, but in each of those scenarios the Golden Eagles rallied to tie the game. The Nittany Lions got on the scoreboard first, with Brett Beith slicing an opposite-field home run over the left field fence to lead off the top of the second inning. They tacked on another tally before the end of the inning, with Cory Lehman hitting an RBI single to right field that scored another and made it 2-0. Cole Slaugenhoup added a base knock with two outs in the top of the third, scoring Grant Lillard to make it 3-0.
Clarion got those three runs right back in the bottom of the third.
Steve Scarfone led off the inning with a single to center field, followed by a one-out single from
Scotty McManamon and a walk from
Griffin Snyder. With the bases loaded and one out,
Kasey Shughart lined a hard single to right field, scoring a pair of runs to cut into the deficit.
Caden Contant continued the roll with a sacrifice fly to deep center field, scoring Snyder and evening the game at 3-3.
Cory Lehman lifted a sac fly of his own in the top of the fourth inning to make it 4-3, but the Golden Eagles rallied again in the bottom of the fifth.
Brycen Dinkfelt led off with a single and McManamon followed with a double to the gap in left-center, putting a pair of runners in scoring position for Snyder. He pushed a ground ball down the first base line to score Dinkfelt and make it 4-4. Shughart nearly put another run on the board with an infield single to first base, but McManamon was caught in a rundown before reaching home. Contant flew out to deep center field to end the threat.
The Nittany Lions scored the go-ahead run in the top of the sixth inning on an RBI single by Beith, but
Luke Birkhead prevented further damage by inducing a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning. Kyle Elensky scored on a wild pitch in the seventh inning to make it a 6-4 game, and DuBois scored twice more in the top of the ninth inning to build a four-run lead. Jake Sikora threw two scoreless innings for the save.
Shughart finished the game 3-for-4 with two RBIs, while McManamon went 2-for-5 with a run scored. Dinkfelt also contributed multiple hits, going 2-for-3 with a run.
Logan Schlegel got the start and allowed two runs in as many innings, while
Logan Hinds allowed three runs in 3.1 innings of relief for the loss.
