INDIANA, Pa. - The IUP baseball team dropped both ends of a home doubleheader to Clarion Saturday afternoon at Dougherty Field. The Crimson Hawks lost by scores of 5-1 and 14-10. 

Between games, the program celebrated its eight seniors for Senior Day. Honored were pitchers JP Pellis, Michael Perreault, Nick Kuhn, Ben Hudock, and Jayson Wilbur, position players Ben Teplin and Chris Eisel, and student assistant coach Lukas Heffner. 

In the opener, Clarion scored in the second and third innings to take a 3-0 lead. Colin Williams put the Crimson Hawks on the board with an RBI triple in the fourth, scoring Ty Diehl. Clarion then answered with a home run in the fifth and scored two in the inning for a comfortable 5-1 win.

Both teams offenses took center stage in the nightcap, as IUP and Clarion combined for 24 runs and 25 hits. Clarion used four straight singles in the first to score four early runs while Eisel brought one across with a RBI single in the bottom half. 

Each team scored in the third and Clarion grabbed a 10-2 lead with two in the fourth and three in the fifth. Harrison Pontoli led off the bottom half with a double, before the Crimson Hawks used four walks and a Markus Cestra extra base hit to score five runs and cut the deficit to 10-7. 

Clarion took a 14-7 lead into the bottom half of the seventh but the Hawks put their rally caps back on. Singles by Nick Hess and Jake Cherry were followed by back-to-back walks, scoring a run. Austin Mueller then singled to right, scoring two and making it a four-run game. Colton Burd drew a walk to put the game-tying run on first with two outs, but a strikeout ended the threat 

Up next
The Crimson Hawks wrap up their 2021 season next weekend with a four-game series against Slippery Rock. IUP will host the series opening doubleheader Friday and travel to Slippery Rock for two on Saturday.

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