NORFOLK, Va. – Old Dominion baseball rallied late but fell to Troy 4-3 on Saturday afternoon in the second game of the weekend series at Harbor Park.
Troy (24-8 Overall, 8-3 Sun Belt) got on the board first as Blake Cavil forced a one-out walk, Harrison Bowman singled and Cavil scored on a Brooks Bryan RBI single.
Both sides were then held scoreless until the top of the fifth. Troy’s Sean Darnell got hit by a pitch and Jimmy Janicki followed with a two-run homer, making the score 3-0. I
ODU catcher Jack Slater got the first hit of the day for the Monarchs with a double into the right field corner. Tahraun Hammond grounded out to move Slater over to third. TJ Aiken drew a walk to put runners on the corners. A wild pitch allowed Slater to score, cutting the Troy lead to 3-1.
With two outs in the top of the seventh, Bryan got hit by a pitch to take first and then stole second. Darnell followed with a outshot to first that Leite stopped but was unable to recover in time to throw out Bryan at home, who scored to make the score 4-1.
Kainen Jorge started out the bottom half of the seventh for the Monarchs with a line drive a single into left field. Tyler Zedalis hit the ball through the gap to put runners on first and second. Kyle Edwards bunted Jorge and Zedalis over to put two runners in scoring position and Slater was able to score Jorge with a ground ball and make it a 4-2 Trojans lead.
After an effective half-inning by Kellen Davis, the Monarchs came back with a ground-rule double from TJ Aiken, a sacrifice bunt from Scotty Young and a single up the middle from Zach Leite that scored Aiken, bringing the score to 4-3.
Jay Dill earned his fifth save of the season, retiring the side in the ninth.
The Monarchs return to Harbor Park for the series finale on Sunday, April 6 at 1 p.m.