After Thursday's exciting 4-2 in over Southern Virginia, the Royals returned to conference play Saturday afternoon, welcoming in Virginia Wesleyan for a twinbill. Eastern Mennonite had beaten the Marlins four straight times over the past two years, but it was not to be this time around as the men lost both games and slipped to 0-4 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.

Virginia Wesleyan 8, EMU 5
Box Score
VWC took the first lead with a two-out RBI bloop single in their first at-bat, but the Royals tied it up on their first time up with a Dylan Smith (Sterling, Va./Park View) RBI single.

The hits continued to come for both teams and the Marlins went back on top with a run in the third. But then the starters settled down as the score stayed 2-1 until the bottom of the fifth.

Adrian Perez (Miami, Fl./Doral Academy) led off the fifth with a walk and was sacrificed to second. Ryan McAlister (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) singled Perez home and then went to third on a well-executed hit-and-run. After a long at-bat, Smith singled McAlister home and EMU went on top 3-2. The Royals left the bases loaded, but had the lead.

The lead was short-lived as Virginia Wesleyan answered with a two-run homerun from Mike McCutcheon. The visitors kept the rally going and brought home two more runs on RBI groundouts, pushing the edge to 6-3.

EMU got one run back in the seventh on back-to-back hits from Chris Harpine (Fredericksburg, Va./Colonial Forge) and Smith, but the men left runners on second and third.

The Marlins again rallied, however, bringing in another run and chasing starting pitcher Jason Tate (Herndon, Va./Herndon). After VWC loaded the bases with a pair of bunt hits, reliever Jon Trice (Stuarts Draft, Va./Stuarts Draft) kept the ball in the infield and got three straight outs to keep the score at 7-4.

The teams traded runs in the ninth as EMU came out on the short end of an 8-5 decision.

Tate started for the Royals and struck out six without a walk in seven innings of work. He gave up seven runs and took the loss. Trice allowed a run on three hits over his two innings.

The offense rapped out 13 hits, led by Harpine's 4-5 performance. McAlister was 2-4 with three runs scored and an RBI. Smith added three hits and a pair of RBIs.

Virginia Wesleyan 7, EMU 2
Box Score
The Marlins again jumped on the board first in the nightcap, plating an unearned run in the second. VWC added another run on a solo homer in the fourth, but the game moved along more quickly than the first game as EMU's Andy Richter (Perkasie, Pa./Christopher Dock) and the Marlins' Cam Butler each did a good job of scattering hits and getting out of jams.

By the fifth, however, the visitors had figured Richter out and were spraying singles around the field. They plated one run in the fifth and four more in the sixth, pushing out to a 7-0 lead.

Harpine tripled with two outs to bring in the Royals' first run in the eighth and Smith then singled him home to make it 7-2. But that would be it for the EMU scoring and the game ended with two Royals being cut down on the base paths.

Richter went seven innings on the mound for the men and was charged with all seven runs and the loss. Thomas Worley (Prince George, Va./Prince George) pitched the final two innings, walking two and striking out two.

Butler was dominating for VWC, striking out 14 Royals as he threw a complete game. Smith and leadoff batter B.J. Mortimer (Mechanicsville, Va./Lee-Davis) each had a pair of hits.

EMU falls to 4-11 with the losses including 0-4 in the ODAC. The Royals are slated to host Shenandoah, ranked No. 4 in the latest D3baseball.com/NCBWA national poll, Monday afternoon at 3:00pm in a rescheduled game.