Shepherd evens record with sweep of UPJ

SHEPHERDSTOWN— Another pair of transplanted baseball games played on Sunday by Shepherd at its Fairfax Field were turned into a doubleheader sweep when the Rams downed visiting Pitt-Johnstown 9-7 and 10-0 in non-conference games originally scheduled to be held at Point Stadium in Johnstown.

Nathan Minnich has three homers and a .346 batting average.

Shepherd had posted a shutout win over the Mountain Cats on Saturday and had a stellar weekend when all three games were quickly moved to Shepherdstown because of unfavorable weather forecasts in central Pennsylavania.

On Sunday, a day where the high winds of Saturday were gone and the temperature was nearly 20 degrees warmer, Shepherd hammered out 12 hits in winning the opener, including three doubles and a single by Nathan Minnich. Minnich had two RBIs. Chad Murphy went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and three runs scored for the Rams. Murphy had his first home run of the season.

Trevor Appleby improved his pitching record to 2-1 with five innings of work in the seven-inning game. Appleby allowed two earned runs, five hits, and fanned four.

Shepherd had three multi-run innings.

In winning 10-0 in the nightcap, Shepherd pitcher Brandon Coffey worked the first five innings and yielded only two harmless hits while fanning three. Bryan DiRosario pitched the final two shutout innings and allowed one hit.

An eight-run fifth inning extended a 2-0 Shepherd lead to 10-0. In the huge inning, Shepherd had hits from Aaron Scoville, Ryan Messina, Nash Hutter, and Scoville again to help plate the eight runs.

Scoville had a pair of doubles as did winning pitcher Coffey. Hutter had a three-run triple in the fifth.

The Rams evened their record at 4-4. Pitt-Johnstown was unbeaten coming into the vweekend, but left Fairfax Field with a 2-3 overall mark.

Shepherd hosts games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at Fairfax Field.

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