Eisenmenger Homers Twice as Baseball Falls to Ithaca

Recap, photo courtesy of St. John Fisher College

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – Senior Scott Eisenmenger hit two home runs including a ninth inning grand slam, but the St. John Fisher College baseball team came up short as the Cardinals fell to Ithaca College, 11-8, in an Empire 8 bout at Dugan Yard.  The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for Fisher and moved the team's record to 10-7 overall and 3-1 in the conference while the Bombers improved to 9-7 on the year and 2-2 in the Empire 8.

After falling behind by a three runs heading into the bottom of the fourth, Fisher got one back as Eisenmenger stepped in and smacked a solo shot over the left-center fence with two outs to make it 3-1 in the Bombers' favor.

Ithaca tacked on two more in the top of the sixth before the Cardinals answered with two of their own in the home half of the frame.  After a groundout to start the inning, Thomas Pasquale reached on an error and moved to third when Eisenmenger clubbed a double down the left field line.  With two runners in scoring position, Ryan Simmons and Allen Murphy each collected an RBI to pull Fisher to within two runs, 5-3.

The momentum swung back in the visitor's favor in the top of the eighth as the Bombers took advantage of a pair of Cardinals' errors and scored four unearned runs to hold a 9-3 edge.  Ithaca struck again in the top of the ninth with two more runs after loading the bases with a pair of hits and three walks.

Trailing 11-3 in the bottom of the ninth, Fisher's bats came to life.  After a groundout, Michael Beimel singled to left before Stephen Edgett followed suit with a base knock of his own.  Justin Graham kept the rally going with an RBI-single to right to make it 11-4.  Antony Mantova drew a pinch-hit hit-by-pitch to load the bases as Eisenmenger clobbered a 3-2 pitch into the Cardinals' bullpen to make it 11-8, but that was as close as Fisher would come as the Bombers escaped with the win.

Tim Geissel was saddled with the loss and moved to 3-1 after going 5.2 innings.  The freshman left-hander allowed four runs on seven hits and three walks with four strikeouts.  Dillan Wilkinson walked three batters before being lifted for Pat Galer who went 2.1 innings.  Galer yielded four runs – all unearned- and tallied four strikeouts overall.  Ryan Felske was tagged for two runs on two hits in two-thirds of an inning while Jack Delaney struck out the only batter he faced.

In all, the team had 10 hits led by Eisenmenger who was 3-for-5 with two homers, a double and a season-best five RBI.  Graham was 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored while Edgett had three hits in four at-bats.