Rochester, NY -- The Elmira College baseball team dropped the first two of a four-game weekend series to St. John Fisher College, suffering a 13-2 defeat in game one before seeing their comeback bid fall just short, losing 9-5, in game two.
 
EC combined for 23 hits in the two games, but 17 of those came in game two as Elmira's bats came alive in the nightcap. Rey Colon '18 was 5-for-7 on the day with two runs scored while Jack Thistle '18 went 4-for-8 with three RBI and one run scored.
 
Also having multi-hit performances were Connor Bawiec '18, who was 3-for-8 in the three-hole with one RBI and one run scored, Bryce Plante '18, who was 3-for-5 in game two, Brian Wehmeyer '18 (2-for-5), Dennis Rudolph '18 (2-for-8), Hayden Rothenberg '17 (2-for-8), and Dylan Bellinger '17 (2-for-7).
 
Game One: St. John Fisher 13, Elmira 2
Davis Salzman '18 got the call to start game one and the Cardinals tagged him for four early runs, getting one in the first and three in the second to take a 4-0 lead. Rothenberg came around to score on Thistle's RBI double in the top of the third inning, but the fourth inning brought another three St. John Fisher runs to make it a 7-1 game.
 
Thistle again had an RBI-producing at-bat in the fifth inning as his groundout to the second basemen scored Colon, but the bottom half of the inning saw the Cardinals break open the game with six runs to make it 13-2, which would be the final score of game one.
 
Game Two: St. John Fisher 9, Elmira 5
St. John Fisher again got to EC's starter early, as they scored three runs on Joe Kidd'18 in the first two innings of the game. But Elmira's offense would respond with two runs in the top of the third inning to make it a 3-2 game. It remained that way until the bottom of the fourth inning when St. John Fisher scored a pair of unearned runs, in addition to one earned run, to make it a 6-2 game.

EC had runners in scoring position in both the fifth and sixth innings, but were unable to produce any runs from the opportunities. That would seem to haunt the Soaring Eagles as a Cardinal home run in the bottom of the sixth and a two-run double in the bottom of the seventh made it a 9-2 game. The Purple and Gold pieced together a three-run eighth inning to make it 9-5, but they left runners stranded on second and third, keeping EC from a potentially game-changing inning.
 
Wehmeyer led off the top of the ninth inning with a single and then stole second to put himself in scoring position with no outs, but St. John Fisher's pitcher would retire the next three Elmira hitters, all by strikeout, to close out the 9-5 win.
 
The Soaring Eagles and Cardinals resume their four-game series tomorrow, April 19th with a pair of games at Dugan Yard. The first game is scheduled to start at 12:00 p.m.