UNC Greensboro rallied from an early deficit and defeated the Princeton baseball team with a two-run walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth on Saturday afternoon at UNCG Stadium. Princeton had come back to the score in the top of the ninth inning but the Spartans homer in their final at bat gave them the 12-10 win.
Princeton jumped out to a big lead early in the game, taking an 8-1 lead with four runs in both the third and fourth innings after falling behind 1-0 in the first. In the third, sophomore
Dan DeGeorge hit a leadoff single and went to third on a single by sophomore
Derek Beckman. Freshman
Greg Van Horn reached on an error to score DeGeorge and both Beckman and Van Horn scored when senior
Sal Iacono delivered a three-run homer.
Princeton, ahead 4-1, made it 8-1 with another four-run inning in the fourth. Freshman Brian Berkowitz started the winning with a double and he scored on a DeGeorge single. Walks to Beckman and Van Horn loaded the bases and senior Aaron Prince brought one run in with a single. After a pop up, freshman Jack Murphy drove in two more runs with a single.
UNCG came right back though with four runs in the bottom half of the inning to cut the lead to 8-5 as both Guy Welsh and Sean Snell delivered two-run homers. UNCG added another run in the fifth when Welsh singled in his third run of the game.
The Spartans drew even two innings later with two runs in the seventh. The Tigers added a run back in the eighth to regain the lead at 9-8, but fell behind 10-9 when UNCG plated a pair in the bottom of the eighth. Princeton drew even in the top of the ninth, which set the stage for Scott Schneider's home run to win it for UNCG in the ninth. Princeton's eighth-inning run came on a Van Horn single that scored DeGeorge, while the Tigers' run in the ninth came on an RBI-double from sophomore Adrian Turnham.
Princeton starting pitcher Christian Staehely allowed five earned runs over five innings, before giving way to freshman David Hale. Hale gave up two over the next two innings. Senior Gavin Fabian gave up two runs in two-thirds of an inning and took the loss.
Princeton falls to 1-6 with the loss and will look to even the series when the teams face each other tomorrow at 1 p.m.
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