March 21, 2012 - Geneva College
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March 21, 2012

Picture of March 21, 2012

Beaver Falls, PA - A near-memorable comeback by the Golden Tornados will be forgotten. On Wednesday afternoon, Geneva fell to the visiting Penn State Beaver by the score of 6-4. As a result, their record will drop to 8-7. The contest began slow, but ended in dramatic fashion.

Geneva starting pitcher Caleb Kilgore started strong and ended stronger. He pitched the first four innings of the ball game and didn′t allow a run. Kilgore′s effort was matched, though, by Penn State′s pitching staff.

Missed opportunities plagued the Golden Tornados early on. In the first inning, Shane Wingard was left stranded on third. Geneva left the bases loaded in the second. Mike Sulava and Joel Gatti each hit singles in the third, but again, Geneva ran out of outs.

In the fifth, Cody Holbrook took the reins on the mound and Bushmire helped him keep the showdown scoreless with an acrobatic catch in centerfield. The highlight-reel play for the Tornados was overshadowed, though, by an offensive onslaught by Penn State in the next inning. After a Beaver batter was hit by a pitch for the second time, a perhaps-fired up squad ignited. What began as an attempt to get a single base runner across home plate with a steal and bunt turned into a 4-0 lead by the end of the sixth.

Sam Potter took over in the seventh, but failed to cool off the fire as Beaver blasted in another pair of runs. Jeffreys slid over from third base to the mound in the eighth shutting out Penn State in the final two innings. And at the bottom of the eighth is where the Tornados began to storm back. A Herzog walk was followed by a Ryan McGonigle double. From there, Dan Jeffreys hit an RBI single to finally get Geneva on the board. Their furious rally in the eighth ended with four runs, but they failed to finish the job in the ninth.

The Golden Tornados will get familiar with Saint Vincent this weekend. The PAC teams will face off on Friday at 3:30 p.m. EST at Geneva which will be followed by a double header on Saturday at the Bearcats′ place starting at 1:00 p.m. EST.

Mar 21, 2012