After three straight weekends in Cary, NC at the home of Team USA Baseball, Penn State will be traveling back home to begin its home schedule at Medlar Field, but not before taking a weekend series against UMass.
The Nittany Lions came into the weekend riding a four-game losing streak after getting swept by an undefeated Virginia team that’s one of the best in the country.
Better things awaited this team over the past weekend and despite getting out-scored, 17-15, Penn State made its runs count. Also, those numbers are quite skewed since 11 of UMass’s 17 runs came in one game.
Despite a rough outing at the end of the last string of games, Tyler Shingledecker was the star on the mound for the Nittany Lions again, recording the win in Friday’s series opener and throwing 3.1 innings of hitless baseball.
So far this season, he’s given up four earned runs over seven outings and 10 innings of work. If you take out his outing against VMI, he has yet to give up an earned run in nine innings on the mound.
Shingledecker was one of three pitchers used on Sunday in what turned into a one-hitter for Penn State, shutting out UMass, 1-0. Mason Mellott started on the mound for the Nittany Lions, giving up one hit in five innings of work as he won his first game of the season.
At the plate, left fielder Cole Bartels extended his hitting streak to 13 games, recording a hit in all three games over the weekend.
Catcher Matt Wood had a pair of two-hit games, scoring two runs and driving in three, including what became the game-winning hit, a solo home run in the first inning of Sunday’s series finale.
In Friday’s series opener, Penn State put up a seven-spot in the fifth inning to put the game to bed, benefitting off two bases-loaded walks along with an RBI single and double, winning 10-6.
Saturday’s game saw UMass score in each of the first four innings of the game, taking a commanding 7-1 lead that they didn’t let up, winning 11-4. We already discussed Sunday’s masterful performance on the mound from the Penn State staff that gave this team the series win.
Sitting at 5-9, Penn State returns home for its home opener against Niagara on Tuesday at 5 pm EST.
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