It will be a rematch of the 2010 championship series as Johns Hopkins and Haverford square off Sunday at noon in game 6 of the Centennial baseball tournament. The Blue Jays are 2-0 after a win over Franklin & Marshall, while the Fords ousted both Ursinus and the Diplomats.
BALTIMORE, Md. – With its back against the wall, the Haverford College baseball team turned in its best all-around performance of the season with a 13-2 win over Ursinus College in a Centennial Conference tournament elimination game Saturday morning at the Johns Hopkins University Baseball Diamond.
Haverford (31-7) advances to another elimination game Saturday at 4 p.m., to face the loser of the Franklin & Marshall/Johns Hopkins contest. Ursinus wraps up 2011 with a 14-21 overall record.
Jonny Williams tossed a complete-game five-hitter to pick up his seventh win (7-2) of the season, tying Haverford's single-season record. Williams was perfect through the first five innings. He lost his perfect game bid on an error to open the sixth. Williams ended the game allowing two runs-one earned-on five hits. He struck out five and didn't walk any hitters.
Offensively, the Fords pounded out 11 hits. Matt Liscovitz led the way with a 2-for-3 effort and drove in four runs. Louis DeRosa was 2-for4 with two RBIs. Jeff Butera added two hits and Charlie Carluccio recorded two RBIs.
Johns Hopkins 5, Franklin & Marshall 3
BALTIMORE, MD - Graduate student Matt Wiegand picked the right time to deliver one of his finest performances of the season as he went the distance to lift top-seeded Johns Hopkins to an intense 5-3 victory over third-seeded Franklin & Marshall in the semifinal round of the Centennial Conference Tournament on Saturday afternoon at the JHU Baseball Diamond. The Blue Jays (24-11) have now won six straight and advance to Sunday's championship round for the fifth season in a row.
Hopkins will look to capture its fifth straight CC crown and will meet second-seeded Haverford (32-7), which rolled past both Ursinus (13-2) and F&M (19-2) to advance to the championship through the loser's bracket. The Fords and Blue Jays will face off in the championship series for the second straight year and Haverford will need to defeat the Blue Jays twice to secure the CC title.
Wiegand tossed his second complete game of the year in impressive fashion as he held the Diplomats to five hits while recording eight strikeouts and walked three. The graduate student came up with big outs time after time, particularly in the crucial final three innings to lead JHU to the ever-important winner's bracket victory.
Haverford 19, Franklin & Marshall 2
BALTIMORE, Md. – After scoring 13 times against Ursinus earlier in the day, Haverford College managed to better that, scoring in six innings, on its way to 19-2 win over Franklin & Marshall in Saturday's second Centennial Conference baseball tournament elimination game.
The Fords (32-7) advance to the championship round of the tournament on Sunday, May 1 in Baltimore, Md. Haverford's opponent will be the Blue Jays of Johns Hopkins University (24-11)—who is currently 2-0 in tournament play. Haverford—2-1 in the tournament—will have to defeat Johns Hopkins, the four-time defending conference champion, twice in order to claim the title. The champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Regional Tournament.
The 19 runs is the highest total by the Fords in the conference tournament and second largest total in tournament history—Johns Hopkins scored 21 in a 2007 tournament game. It's the second time this season that Haverford scored 19 times in a game.
Starting pitcher Bryan Henrick was the benefactor of all the run support and picked up his school-record eighth win (8-1) of the season. He scattered eight hits in his eight innings of work. Henrick struck out three. Kyle Waney tossed a perfect ninth inning, including a pair of strikeouts.