HUNTINGDON, PA – The Juniata baseball team (8-25, 2-19 Landmark) opened up their final conference game of the season against Catholic University (22-11-1, 12-9 Landmark) by recognizing the collegiate careers of seniors Chris Fulton (West Chester, PA / Unionville HS) and Cody Krepps (Tyrone, PA / Bellwood-Antis) Sunday afternoon.
The Eagles dropped the contest to Catholic 4-12.
Chris Sinisi (Altoona, PA / Altoona Area) and David DeFreest (Duxburry, VT / Harwood Union) led the Eagles with two hits a-piece. Sinisi is currently on a four-game hit streak, over which his batting average is 0.538.
Catholic jumped ahead of Juniata early, going up 7-0 heading into the bottom of the third.
Sinisi got things started for the Eagles with a leadoff single to right field. Tyler Morris (Ellicott City, MD / Centennial) reached first on an error by the third baseman. DeFreest came to the plate with one out and blasted a 2RBI-single to center field. The Cardinals recorded two quick outs to stop Juniata's rally and keep the score 7-2.
The Eagles defense would rebound from an early error in the top of the fourth to keep the Cardinals offense from getting more than one run on the board.
In the bottom half of the inning, Brady Cotler (Chadds Ford, PA / Salesianum) got things started with a single to right. Kyle Pannebaker (Thompsontown, PA / East Juniata) followed with a single to right. Two batters later, Sinisi singled to center to load the bases. Cotler would score on the fielder's choice that gave the Cardinals the second out of the inning. Nick Stubbs (Hagerstown, MD / South Hagerstown) would keep the inning alive by beating the throw to first while Pannebaker scored. The inning would end with the Eagles down 4-8.
After the fourth, Juniata was unable to score a run and left four on base. Catholic went on to win by a final of 12-4.
J.D. Weyant (New Paris, PA / Chestnut Ridge) was the starting pitcher for Juniata. Weyant tossed five innings, allowed nine hits, gave up nine runs (one unearned), walked seven and struck out two. Jonathan Geyer (Newport, PA / Newport HS) came in for relief and was on the mound for the final four innings. Geyer allowed four hits, gave up three runs (one unearned), walked three, and struck out one.
Juniata's next game is a doubleheader against Penn Tech on Wednesday starting at 2:00pm.
