PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia University baseball team suffered a pair of losses, 7-0 and 9-7, to Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference opponent Felician Wednesday afternoon on Alumni Field.

Philadelphia is now 8-15 overall and 2-4 against the CACC. Felician improves to 14-11 overall, 6-2 in conference play.

GAME ONE
The Golden Falcons' John Holland scattered six hits, all singles, and struck out five over the nine innings to earn the complete-game victory (2-3). He threw 121 pitches, 77 of them for strikes.

In the third inning, Felician took a 2-0 lead on a throwing error on a double steal and a sacrifice fly by Scott De Jong.

After getting a single run in the fourth, the Golden Falcons tacked on four more runs in the sixth. Aaron Brill drove in two runs with a two-out double to deep right center. Joe Petosa and Brennan Price followed up with RBI singles to left field.

Brill led the Felician offense with three hits in five at-bats and knocked in two runs.

For Philadelphia, junior designated hitter Ken McCormick (Yardley, Pa./Pennsbury) had two of the Rams' six hits. Senior first baseman Jordan Force (East Greenville, Pa./Upper Perkiomen) recorded a single and stole three bases. Force was the only Ram to reach third base as he singled and swiped two bases in the fourth.

Junior David Lerro (Secane, Pa./Upper Darby) took the loss (0-3) as he allowed three runs, two earned, on four hits, and struck out three in four innings.

GAME TWO
After Felician scored single runs in the first and second to take a 2-0 lead, Philadelphia came back with seven runs over four innings to jump ahead 7-2 through five innings.

During the rally, the Rams plated five runs in the home half of the fourth. Senior second baseman John Sczepanski (Lafayette Hill, Pa./La Salle College High School) opened the fourth inning off with a walk and went to third on a double by freshman catcher John Brocious (Bellmawr, N.J./Triton). Three batters later, senior left fielder Shane Yoshiyama (Honolulu, Hawaii/Punahou School) drew a two-out walk to load the bases.

McCormick worked a walk to bring Sczepanski home and tie the score at two.

Senior center fielder Rick Reigner (Havertown, Pa./Monsignor Bonner) followed by driving a Lawrence Schoer 1-1 pitch over the right field fence for a grand slam to give Philadelphia a 6-2 lead. Reigner's homer was the team's first of the season.

Junior shortstop Hector Gonzalez (Laredo, Texas/United) brought home Sczepanski for the Rams' seventh run in the fifth with a two-out double into the left field corner.

The score remained 7-2 until the eighth when Felician got a two-run home run by Joe Petosa to make it a 7-4 game.

Felician completed its rally with a five-run top of the ninth inning. After getting three straight one-out singles to load the bases, Gabriel Fellin singled to right to cut the Philadelphia lead to 7-5. In the next at-bat, Brill connected for a grand slam over the left field fence to put the visitors ahead 9-7.

Sczepanski and Reigner had two hits each for the Rams, who had eight in the game.

The Golden Falcons finished with 13 hits, eight coming in the final two innings.

Matthew Facendo kept the Rams off the board in the eight and ninth to earn the win (2-0). He struck out two and gave up one hit.

Sophomore closer Luke Floer (Brewster, N.Y./North Salem) took the loss (0-1).

Philadelphia welcomes Caldwell to Alumni Field for a CACC doubleheader on Saturday, April 5 at noon.