ASTON, Pa. – Keystone baseball fell in its penultimate regular-season game with a 5-3 road loss to Neumann Tuesday afternoon in non-conference action at Bruder Baseball Field.
The Giants took an early 1-0 lead on Luis Francisco's (Laceyville, Pa./Stroudsburg) sacrifice fly in the second inning, but the Knights plated a pair of runs — including the game winner — on back-to-back bases-loaded walks in the fourth.
Neumann added another run on a wild pitch an inning later before driving in another pair of runs in the fifth to take a 5-1 lead.
Keystone was able to get a pair of runs back in the seventh inning with a bases-loaded two-RBI-single from Chris Hadsall (Lehman, Pa./Lake Lehman), but that would be it for the scoring as the Knights took the win, 5-3.
Neumann improved to 12-20 overall on the year while the Giants fell to 20-16.
Inside The Box Score
- Brayan Villar (West Orange, N.J./Belleville) made his fifth start on the mound this season in recording the loss to fall to 2-2. The junior right-hander had his longest outing of the year in going 4.0 innings with a career-high nine strikeouts but six walks allowed.
- Senior Ross Zanghi (Scranton, Pa./Scranton) closed out the final 2.0 innings on the mound while dealing a career-high five strikeouts.
- Francisco made his fourth start of the season, his first since the Wilson series on March 20.
- Graduate senior JD Barrett (Moosic, Pa./Dallas) is still one hit away from reaching his 100th career hit.
- Senior RJ Gouldsbury (Throop, Pa./Mid Valley) notched two hits with a double and is now seven hits away from 100 in his career.
- Neumann's Anthony Basciano walked four times batting in the No. 2 spot.
- Knights pitchers induced 16 fly outs.
- Freshman Nick Colon recorded the win in 4.0 innings of relief work to improve to a 2-3 pitching record.
- Starting second baseman Nick Glebocki made just his second appearance on the rubber in notching the save with 2.0 innings of work to close out the Knights' win.
- Both teams each stranded 10 runners on base with multiple bases-loaded opportunities.
What's Next
Keystone will host Scranton (27-9-1 overall) Wednesday, May 4 at 3:45 p.m. in its regular-season finale.
Neumann will conclude its regular season with a three-game series against Marymount this weekend.
CSAC Championships
- The top-seeded Giants (10-2 CSAC) will begin the defense of their 12-consecutive conference titles with a best-of-three series against fourth-seeded Saint Elizabeth (7-5 CSAC) this weekend, May 6-7, at Christy Mathewson Field.
- Keystone swept the Eagles last weekend in their regular-season series.
- No. 2 Wilson (10-2 CSAC) and No. 3 Cairn (8-4 CSAC) play each other in the other semifinals matchup.
- Championship series is set for May 13-14 at the highest remaining seed's home field.
- The Giants will have home-field advantage throughout the conference postseason due to winning the tiebreaker over Wilson. Keystone swept third-seeded Cairn during the regular season while the Phoenix split their series.