To call Saturday a day of frustration for the Royals might be an understatement. The Eastern Mennonite baseball team was at Hampden-Sydney for an ODAC twinbill and came home with a pair of stinging defeats. The Tigers took game one from EMU in extra innings, 5-4, before scoring nine runs in the bottom of the eighth to steal a 14-11 win in game two.

Hampden-Sydney 5, EMU 4 - 10 innings
Box Score
The Royals scored first with an RBI groundout in the second and then went up 2-0 with a two-out RBI single from Ryan McAlister (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) in the third.

Hampden-Sydney scored their first run off starter Andy Richter (Perkasie, Pa./Christopher Dock) in the bottom of the frame, but EMU scored again in the fourth. Chris Harpine (Fredericksburg, Va./Colonial Forge) led off with his program record-breaking sixth triple of the season and came in when Jake Norman (Fredericksburg, Va./Colonial Forge) singled.

The teams traded runs in the bottom of the fifth and top of the sixth, leaving the score at 4-2, before the Tigers tied it with two unearned runs in the bottom of the sixth.

After all the hits and excitement of the first six innings, the pitchers took over in the final frames. EMU got one hit in the seventh and HSC got a pair of singles in the ninth, but the game slipped into extra innings at 4-4.

The Royals got a runner on in the top of the tenth but left him on first base. The Tigers then loaded the bases with walks to three of their first four batters. A one-out single brought in the game-winning run.

Closer Thomas Worley (Prince George, Va./Prince George) took the loss. He came in with one out in the ninth but hit problems in the tenth to suffer his first defeat of the year.

Richter gave up just two earned runs on six hits in his 5-1/3 innings of work. Adam Posey (Poquoson, Va./Poquoson) allowed three hits in three scoreless innings of relief.

The Royals were out-hit 10-8 and no one had more than one hit. Norman finished 1-3 with a walk and hit-by-pitch. He scored a run and knocked in another. Catcher Dylan Smith (Sterling, Va./Park View) reached base three times with a single and two walks.

Hampden-Sydney 14, EMU 11
Box Score
Beau Banglesdorf (Stafford, Va./Mountain View) was a one-man wrecking crew in the nightcap. He singled in the game's first run in the first and then put EMU up 6-5 with a three-run inside-the-park homerun in the third.

Banglesdorf added a two-run double in the fourth and an RBI single in the fifth as the Royals grabbed a 10-5 lead.

With back-to-back doubles from McAlister and Smith in the seventh, EMU pushed the lead to 11-5.

But the wheels fell off in the bottom of the eight, when Hampden-Sydney sent 15 men to the plate and exploded for nine runs to grab a 14-11 lead.

The Royals went down in the order in the top of the ninth as the Tigers completed the huge comeback.

Chris DeWald (Williamsburg, Va./Lafayette) started for EMU and allowed five on eight hits over five innings and got a no-decision. Worley walked three and hit a batter as he was charged with five runs in just 2/3 of an inning and took the loss.

Banglesdorf led the 15-hit attack, as he finished 4-5 with a seven RBIs and a run scored. The inside-the-park homer was his team-leading fourth homerun of the season.

McAlister finished with three hits and three runs. Smith was 2-4 with two runs and two RBIs. B.J. Mortimer (Mechanicsville, Va./Lee-Davis) was 2-4 with two walks and scored twice.

The losses drop the Royals to 8-21 on the season and 2-13 in the ODAC. EMU is back on the road Wednesday, playing a single ODAC game at Washington & Lee starting at 5:00pm.