SAINT PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Saint Leo baseball team traveled to Saint Petersburg to take on the Eckerd College Tritons who sit among the top three in the Sunshine State Conference standings Thursday. The Lions fell in the opening game 2-1 in 10 innings but they responded in game two with 12 hits and 11 runs to take an 11-8 victory.
 
Game one featured a pair of outstanding pitching performances as the Lions were led by sophomore McCabe Sargent who went 8.0 innings with 10 strikeouts, a pair of walks and just one run given up. The hurler scattered seven hits over his eight innings of work. Senior Dillon McCollough of Eckerd went pitch-for-pitch with Sargent as he completed 9.0 innings of work with 17 strikeouts, one walk, one run allowed and six hits.   
 
The Tritons stole the victory with a one-out solo homerun in the bottom of the tenth.
 
In game two senior Brett Coffel, redshirt senior Derek Gibree and redshirt sophomore Danny Torres led the way. Coffel went 2-for-4 at the plate with a double, a home run, two runs scored and three RBI. Gibree was 3-for-5 with a double and two runs scored while Torres was 2-for-4 with a home run, two runs scored and two RBI.
 
The split moves the Lions record to 21-22 in 2019 and 10-13 in Sunshine State Conference play while Eckerd moved to 27-15 overall and 16-10 in league action.
 
The Lions had to overcome a season-high seven errors in the game and that started on the pitcher's mound where three Lions continued the strong performance from game one. Senior Shane Haight took the start and went 6.0 innings with six strikeouts and no walks. He scattered four hits while allowing five runs to score with just two being earned. Freshman Ruddy Gomez pitched the seventh and the eighth innings and struck out two while allowing four hits. Three runs crossed the plate including two earned. The final pitcher was senior Peyton Isaacson who closed the door in the ninth with a hitless inning of work.
 
Haight took home the victory to move to 3-4 on the season while Isaacson collected his fifth save of the season and 19^th of his two-year Lion career.
 
The Lions quickly got on the board in the second contest of the night as they scored three runs in the opening inning. After three-straight walks to open the game, Coffel provided the spark with a two-RBI double down the left field line. Redshirt freshman Paul Coumoulos then sent a sacrifice fly to centerfield for the third tally of the inning.
 
The lead opened up to 5-0 in the third as Torres sent a two-run home run over the left field fence which scored Coffel who led off the inning with a walk.
 
Eckerd scored its first two runs of the game in the bottom of the third and added two more in the fourth to cut the lead to 5-4 halfway through the contest. Saint Leo scored one run in the fifth, one in the sixth and then exploded with four in the seventh. The Tritons would add one in the seventh and two in the eighth but it was too little, too late for Eckerd.
 
The Lions and Tritons will decide the winner of this SSC battle tomorrow night starting at 6 p.m. Friday night.  
 
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