Everything clicked for the Coppin State baseball team as the Eagles scored 22 runs, made no errors and got great starting pitching in a doubleheader sweep over Mount St. Mary’s on Saturday afternoon at Straw Family Stadium. Coppin hammered the Mountaineers, 15-5, in game one before taking the nightcap, 7-3.
Aaron Rea got the win in the opener, allowing only two hits without a walk while striking out six in 6.0 innings. A redshirt senior from Altamonte Springs, Fla., Rea recorded his 16th career victory which ranks second in school-history, and he now has 221 strikeouts, just shy of Brian Pisani’s school-record of 229.
Rea got plenty of help from his offense which scored two runs in the opening inning as Conner Walker and Eddie Javier, Jr., drew walks with the bases loaded. Scoring on the free passes were Darren Hagan and Nick Morales who delivered with back-to-back one-out singles.
The Mountaineers went 1-2-3 in both the first and third innings after collecting their only two hits against Rea in the second inning. Coppin tacked on another run in the fourth as Grant Williams scored on a wild pitch to make it a 3-0 game.
Rea struck out all three Mount players swinging in the fourth and that momentum carried into the fifth as the Eagles went off for 11 runs on eight hits in the fifth, blowing the game open at 14-0.
Walker doubled to straight-away center to drive in Sebastien Sarabia and Walker scored on a single by Williams. Walks issued to Justin Oakley and Hagan scored two more before RBI singles by Morales and Sarabia made it a 9-0 game. Walker and Javier again drew bases loaded walks and both Williams and Day recorded RBI singles to wrap up the scoring. CSU sent 16 batters to the plate in the frame.
Rea got another 1-2-3 inning in the fifth and a wild pitch allowed Mario Cuevas to score for the Eagles in the sixth. Three more Mountaineers outs in the sixth wrapped up Rea’s day after he retired the final 14 batters he faced.
Max Rundberg retired a pair of batters in the seventh, but not before giving up five runs on five hits and Nico Felber finished it off with a groundout.
Morales and Williams both had three hits and two runs in the opener with Williams driving in two. Sarabia and Matt Day also had multi-hit games with Sarabia also drawing two walks. Walker had a team-high three RBI with a hit and a pair of walks while Oakley and Javier also drew three walks.
The Eagles were quick to give William Jackson a boost on the mound to start game two, recording a pair of runs in the first inning on back-to-back doubles by Walker and Javier. Hagan scored on Walker’s two-base knock from first after reaching on an error.
Mount St. Mary’s cut the lead in half with one run in the bottom of the first but that was all they got off Jackson, who lasted 4.2 innings with four strikeouts and no walks.
Coppin went scoreless in the second, but Walker blasted a three-run opposite field home run to make it a 5-1 game after three. Devyan Dyal drove in two more runs with a single to left center in the fifth to increase the advantage to 7-1.
Jackson retired the first two Mount players in the fifth, but after allowing a single, gave way to freshman Tyler Nichol who retired the side. The Mountaineers got two runs across in the sixth to cut the deficit to 7-3 but Nichol got a 1-2-3 seventh inning to shut the door on the hosts.
Walker finished the nightcap 2-for-3 with three runs and four RBI while Javier also had a pair of hits. Both Oakley and Dyal had a hit and a walk.