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Messiah Falls At Fifth-Ranked Johns Hopkins
Junior Ben Kirk doubled Tuesday, providing Messiah's only extra-base hit.

Baltimore, MD — It was pouring down rain in Grantham, Pennsylvania when the Messiah College baseball team departed campus for the 84-mile trip southward to Johns Hopkins University Tuesday afternoon.

If only it had been raining there.

Messiah (3-4) suffered its fourth consecutive defeat and worst loss of the season to the host Blue Jays, dropping a 13-2 decision before inclement weather finally ended the spectacle in the bottom of the eighth inning.

“In all of my playing days and now early in my coaching career, this Johns Hopkins team is probably one of the best college teams I’ve ever seen,” said Bryan Engle, Messiah head coach. “They’ve got 17 seniors on their roster and are extremely deep, not to mention they are very good offensively.

“Today was the first time this year that I felt like we were just plain beaten.”

The Blue Jays — ranked fifth in the nation in the latest D3baseball.com Top 25 Poll — pounded out 13 hits against the Falcons in their season-opener, scoring seven runs in the first two at-bats and never looking back. Completing last season as regional runners-up with a 38-11 record overall, Johns Hopkins (1-0) utilized a second-inning grand slam to blow the game open, handing senior Jeremy Stoltzfus (0-1) his first pitching loss of the season.

Stoltzfus lasted four innings while giving up nine runs off of 10 hits and striking out two, with the Blue Jays’ second-inning slam serving as the defining moment. After holding the hosts to just one run off of two hits in the first inning, Stoltzfus allowed four straight singles to open the bottom half of the second stanza. Following a strikeout to the Blue Jays’ Jon Solomon, JHU’s Brian Youchak laced a homer to right center field, clearing the bases and putting the Falcons behind 6-0.

Even with John Hopkins’ stellar play, Engle’s squad did little to help itself, committing a season-high five errors. It was also the seventh time in as many outings that Messiah failed to score first in a game, despite the fact that the team has been the visiting squad on all seven occasions.

“That is really the thing that continues to hurt us, our inability to score first,” Engle said. “Against a team like Johns Hopkins, you just can’t afford to play catch-up. (Being behind) puts pressure on your defense, your pitchers, even your hitters. It takes you out of your game plan in that you can’t be as aggressive as maybe you would like to be.”

Messiah got on the board in the sixth inning, as sophomore Jordan Zimmerman led off with an infield single. After a wild pitch allowed Zimmerman to get to second, junior Ben Kirk doubled down the left field line, driving home Zimmerman in the process. A follow-up single from sophomore Sheldon Witmer moved Kirk to third base, while a deep sacrifice fly from senior Kyle Stuckey brought Kirk home.

Senior Ben Jordan — two innings pitched, one run off of one hit with three strikeouts — and sophomore Elliot Thomas — one and two-thirds innings pitched, three runs off of two hits and two strikeouts — came on in pitching relief for the Falcons, as the game was called with two outs and a Blue Jays’ runner on third base in the bottom of the eighth. It was the first steady rain Engle had seen since they left Messiah earlier in the day.

It didn’t interrupt anything worth saving, according to the Falcons’ skipper.

“I told the guys, sometimes you’ve got to just tip your cap,” Engle said. “It’s not to say we can’t compete with a team like this, because I think we can. Today, however, we did not.”

Zimmerman led the offensive pace going 2-3 from the plate with a run scored. Kirk finished 1-3 via his double with an RBI. Witmer, sophomore Jon-Mike Richards, junior Jonny Ebersole and senior Craig Mease all delivered a single in the loss.

“We’re slowly starting to hit the ball better, but we just haven’t had the big hits at the right times in the last few games,” Engle said. “We can’t press and try to make up for what we haven’t done, though. We’ve got to continue to look forward and focus on our goal of winning the next one.”

That ‘next one’ is slated to take place on Messiah’s home field for the first time this year, as the team will play host to York College on Thursday. A single, nine-inning game is scheduled for a 3 p.m. start.