The Case Western Reserve Spartans had a come from behind win to defeat the third ranked Emory University baseball team 4-3 on Monday night in game two for both teams in the 2016 UAA Baseball Championships. With the win, CWRU takes sole possession of first place in the UAA standings at 2-0 while the Eagles move into a tie for second with Washington, Rochester and Brandeis at 1-1. Emory sees their eight-game winning streak come to an end and fall to 11-3 on the season. Case Western Reserve moves to 5-4 overall with victory.
Junior Hans Hansen went 6.2 innings allowing three runs (two runs) on four hits. He walked two and struck out four. Junior Kyle Monk was saddled with his first loss of the season giving up one unearned run in 1.1 innings. He had one strikeout.
Senior Chris Slivka led all batters with a 4-for-4 day at the plate. Fellow senior David Coble has two RBI for the Eagles.
Coble broke a scoreless in the top of the fourth as he singled with the bases loaded to bring home junior Philip Maldari to give Emory a 1-0 lead.
In the bottom half of the inning, Hansen saw his scoreless streak come to an end at 24.2 consecutive innings as Case Western Reserve knotted the game at 1-1. A weak ground ball was fielded by Maldari ranging to his left but his errant throw to first allowed Rocco Maue to score.
Coble picked up his second RBI of the game in the sixth with a sac fly to center field to bring home senior Ben Vizvary. Emory added another run to go ahead 3-1 in the seventh as Maldari beat out the return throw on a fielder's choice with Hernandez scoring from third on the play.
The Spartans were able to score two in the seventh, the first two earned runs surrendered by Hansen on the year, to tie the score at 3-3. Hansen did not allow an earned run through his first 27.2 innings of his junior campaign. Jacob Kucia had a shallow looping liner that dropped in front of Coble which plated Daniel Watson. Later in the inning, Tony Damiano singled through the left side to score Kucia.
The Eagles had a chance to take the lead in the eighth as junior Cody Wetmore stole second and third with two outs but was stranded as sophomore Nick Chambers struck out swinging to end the inning.
In the bottom of the eighth, CWRU went in front 4-3 as Maue beat out a bunt right in front of the plate for a single and sophomore Bubby Terp's throw to first went over the head of senior Dylan Eisner that allowed Aaron Cain to round third and score the go ahead run. Eisner kept the score at 4-3 as he made a spectacular diving catch to end the inning.
Emory got on runner on with two outs in the ninth as Watson misplayed a grounder by Eisner however Nate Glasser got Maldari to strikeout swinging to end the ball game.
The Eagles return to the diamond tomorrow afternoon with a meeting against Brandeis at 5:00 PM. The Judges defeated New York University 8-1 on Monday afternoon.