Contact: John Hartrick (hartrick@binghamton.edu)

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. - Binghamton baseball (9-13, 4-6 America East) shook off 7-6 extra-inning loss in the opener and posted an 8-4 Game 2 win to gain a doubleheader split Saturday afternoon at Hartford (12-17, 5-4 AE).

In the seven-inning second game, BU snapped a 4-4 tie with two runs in the fifth inning and added two more in the seventh for the final margin. In the fifth, freshman DH Chris McGee hit a one-out triple and came home to score on an RBI double by senior center fielder Zach Blanden. With two outs, senior right fielder Jake Thomas brought Blanden home with an RBI single up the middle, making it 6-4. The Blanden-Thomas duo struck again in the seventh - each blasting a home run. Blanden led off and deposited a 2-1 pitch over the left field wall for his third home run of the season. Two batters later, Thomas sent a 1-1 pitch over the right field wall for his second round-tripper of the spring. 

Junior starter Mike Bunal (W, 3-3) went 5.1 innings and scattered seven hits and three earned runs. Junior Nick Liegi earned his first save of the season with 1.2 innings of relief. Liegi entered in the sixth inning and promptly picked off a runner at first. He then worked out of a two-on jam with a groundout. 

Blanden and Thomas each went 3-for-4 with two RBI. Blanden scored three runs and Thomas crossed twice. Junior second baseman Reed Gamache ripped a bases-loaded, two-run double to get BU on the board in the fourth inning and sophomore shortstop Brendan Skidmore and second-year catcher Eddie Posavec each had an RBI in the four-run fourth. 

In the opener, the Bearcats squandered a 6-3 eighth-inning lead in the opener and lost when the Hawks converted a bases loaded, two-strike, two-out single in the bottom of the 10th inning. 

Binghamton led 2-1 and then scored three runs in the sixth courtesy of a one-out, three-run home run from Posavec - his first of the season. But Hartford used a pair of triples to score twice in the bottom of the frame and chase senior starter Greg Ostner (5.2 IP, 5 hits, 2 ER). Freshman Dylan Stock stranded two to get out of the sixth without further damage. 

But the Hawks hit another triple in the eighth to score two. Then after senior closer Mike Urbanski (L, 1-1) got a strikeout and a comebacker to nearly end the threat, Hartford tied the game on an infield error. Two innings later, the Hawks won it on a two-out walkoff single after a single and two walks had loaded the bases.

Posavec went 3-for-5 with a double, home run and three RBI. McGee and Thomas had two hits and an RBI apiece.  

The teams play the rubber game at noon on Sunday at Fiondella Field. Junior righty Rob Hardy (1-2, 5.08 ERA) takes the hill for Binghamton.