Eliopolous, Bejsiuk lead Baseball to first place in Centennial

Over a busy four-day stretch, the Blue Jays managed to come out undefeated, sweeping Gettysburg College in a home-and-away series and beating Ursinus twice at the Hopkins baseball diamond on a Sunday double-header.

In their first match with Gettysburg, the visiting Bullets seemed well on their way to a rout over the Jays, getting a quick 5-0 lead after the top of the third as sophomore pitcher Kevin Gillen got off to a rough start for Hopkins.

Yet those were all the runs Gettysburg would have until later in the seventh when the Jays would mount a furious comeback. In the bottom of the third, the Jays rallied for three runs off of an error by the Bullets on an infield pop-up that should have ended the inning.

Over the next two-and-a-half innings, pitching dominated the game as both teams combined for no runs and seven runners left on base.

However, Hopkins’s offense awoke with a vengance in the bottom of the sixth when they capitalized on another Bullet. Senior outfielder and co-captain Jesse Sikorski took advantage, smacking his fifth home run of the season, a grand slam bringing sophomore Kyle Neverman, junior Mike Musary and graduate student Steve Bejsiuk home for a 7-5 Jay lead.

“After that home run,” Sikorski said, “there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to win the game.”

The two teams then traded leads, with Gettysburg going up 8-7 in the top of the seventh, Hopkins taking back the lead 9-8 in the bottom of the seventh and Gettysburg tying the game 9-9 in the top of the eighth.

Junior reliever Aaron Schwartz managed to keep the Bullets off the scoreboard in the top of the ninth, setting up a fantastic finish for the Jays to win the game.

After a double by Bejsiuk and a walk by Musary, Neverman, the team’s talented shortstop, stepped up and launched a walk-off RBI single over the third base bag to get the 10-9 victory for Hopkins.

The next day, the Jays traveled to Gettysburg to finish the season series. In stark contrast to the 19 runs scored and six pitchers featured the previous day, Friday’s match-up was a true pitcher’s duel.

Hopkins junior starting pitcher Alex Eliopoulos recorded the complete game shutout as he dazzled Gettysburg hitters with a variety of pitches. Eliopoulos’s performance was his second complete game of the season and fifth win of the year.

For the Bullets, sophomore left-hander Ryan Taylor took the loss to fall to 3-4 on the season despite going nine strong innings and allowing no hits after the first.

Unfortunately for Taylor, his poor first inning was all the run support Eliopoulos needed to earn the victory.

With a single from Neverman, a double from Sikorski and singles by sophomores Ryan Zakszeski and Jeff Lynch, the Jays were able to take a 3-0 lead that held for the rest of Eliopoulos’s three hitter.

“Alex stepped up and dominated at a time that we really needed him to,” Sikorski said. “I was not surprised at all [by the way he pitched].”

Sunday's first victory was led by the elder statesmen as graduate students Bejsiuk and Joe Borrelli began a comeback effort with solo home runs in the second and third innings respectively to bring the score to 5-2 Ursinus.

From there, the Jay bats came alive with a thunderous fourth inning where Ursinus’s starting pitcher Steve Christakos saw 14 batters.

In that inning, Lynch, sophomore Zach Small, Bejsiuk, senior Anthony Venditti, Musary, Borrelli and Sikorski got on base with Lynch, Small, Bejsiuk and Venditti reaching multiple times. In total the Jays managed eight hits, 10 base runners and nine runs to take the lead for good.

The Bears then managed only two more hits against Hopkins’s junior starting pitcher Sam Eagleson who finished with a complete game win as Hopkins ended the game with a convincing 14-5 final.

The second game of the double header in Baltimore was a bit closer in score, but no different in result.

With two runs each in the second, third and seventh innings and a run in the fourth, Hopkins jumped out to a 7-0 lead before the Bears made any noise with a three-run eighth.

Unfortunately for Ursinus, the rally was too little too late as Hopkins’s closer Schwartz finished off the victory for graduate student Matt Wiegand with 1.1 scoreless innings.

With his fourth inning homer in the 7-3 win, his sixth of the season, Sikorski moved into second place on the all-time home run list for Hopkins with 32 for his career.

“It’s a great feeling [to move up in the record books], but it will feel even better if I am able to break that record [held by John Christ] and move into first place all-time,” Sikorski said.

Bejsiuk, the team’s second baseman, went 5-6 in the two games, taking two balls deep over the right field wall as well as adding two doubles.

“Coach Babb put it all in perspective,” Besjiuk said. “He gave us a talk saying if you don’t get the job done, he’ll go to the next guy, and after that I knew if I got good pitches to hit I’d step up and deliver. I got some good hitter’s counts and saw the ball real well.”

“The Big Dog,” as he’s known  to his teammates, raised his

average to .329 and now leads the team in doubles with seven.

After five straight wins in as many days, the Jays fell 6-5 to Lebanon Valley College in Anneville, Penn.

The Flying Dutchmen jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead after the bottom of the second on a solo home run and capitalized on a Jay error that allowed three unearned runs to score.

However, after the rough start by Hopkins’s starting pitcher sophomore A.J. Hellow, the bullpen stepped up big time. Juniors Garrett Gomez, Lucas Henneman, Mike Berliner and Blake Platt gave up only one run the rest of the game, allowing the boys in black and blue a chance for the comeback.

With steady production over the remaining seven innings led by home runs from Small and junior Sam Wernick as well as a two-hit performance from senior co-captain Tim Rappazzo, the Jays slowly chipped away at the Dutchmen lead, getting runs in the third, fifth and sixth innings to set up a dramatic ninth inning finish.

With the bases loaded, Borrelli, one of the team’s four co-captains, stepped up to the plate in a pinch hit situation after getting the day off in non-conference action.

The graduate student was the latest Centennial Conference Player of the Week and it looked like Hopkins was well on its way to another walk-off victory.

Borrelli swung at the first pitch, lacing one up the middle, but right at the perfectly positioned Dutchmen second basemen to spoil the Hopkins comeback.

Lebanon Valley’s freshman closer Corey Cinicola got the graduate student to ground into a double play to end the game.

Despite the loss, Hopkins still emerged from their five-game stretch with a 4-1 record and the outright lead in the Centennial Conference with a conference record of 11-3 and overall record of 18-11.

Up next, the Jays take on Washington College at Hopkins on Thursday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. before heading to Washington on Friday and hosting the Muhlenberg Mules on Saturday to wrap up conference play.

“We control our own fate and we’ve got our top guns going this weekend, so we feel real confident heading into the weekend,” Besjiuk said. “We are going to play Hopkins baseball and take care of business.”

Sikorski echoed his teammate’s comments, feeling ready for a couple of big games.

“I expect us to sweep all the games this weekend and lock up the home field advantage for the conference tournament.”