Baseball Splits Double-Header Against NJIT; Walk-Off Home Run By Grimes Gives Peacocks Game 2 Win

The Saint Peter's College (6-19) baseball team split a pair of non-conference games against the NJIT Highlanders  (5-9) Friday evening. The Peacocks dropped the first contest by a score of 11-0, but walked away with a 5-4 victory in extra innings in the second. Zack Hopf was credited with the loss in the first game (6 innings pitched, 9 hits, 5 earned runs, 4 strike outs) while Dom Macaluso received the win in the second game in relief (4.2 innings pitched, 4 hits, 1 earned run, 3 walks.)

Saint Peter's managed just four hits in game one, compared to NJIT's fifteen. The Highlanders scored three in the first, two in the third and exploded for an additional six runs in the eight. SPC committed two errors in the contest. Justyn Carter led the way, going 2-4.

In the second contest the Peacocks attacked early on, scoring one run in the bottom of the first and an RBI double by Russ Stupienski to score Chris Grimes. The Peacocks' offense flowed into the following inning, as SPC has runners on first and second with two outs and an RBI base hit by Pat Farrell brought home Matt Mancini to make the score 2-0. Two batters later, Stupienski again came up with an extra base hit for the Peacocks, doubling home Farrell and Justyn Carter (4-0).

NJIT refused to go down quietly however, slowly chipping away at Saint Peter's lead by adding a run in the third, two in the fifth and then one in the seventh to tie the game.

Originally scheduled to be a seven inning game, the contest would go into the tenth inning, with a walk-off home run by senior Chris Grimes securing the victory for Saint Peter's.

Both teams recorded 9 hits in the contest, with Saint Peter's committing 4 errors to NJIT's none. Chris Grimes (2-3, 2 runs scored, 1 RBI), Russ Stupienski (2-4, 3 RBI) and and Brian Koster (2-4) each had a multi-hit game to lead the Peacocks.