MANSFIELD – Tyler Guidos and Joseph DePerno both recorded nine strikeouts in their 2019 Shaute Field debuts, but the Mounties were unable to scrap together enough offense to take down West Chester on Monday afternoon.
 
The Mansfield University baseball team hosted the nationally ranked #9 Golden Rams on Monday following their split on Sunday.  WCU took both games by scores of 7-2 and 5-1. 
 
Junior righty Tyler Guidos took the mound in the third game of the series and worked a 1-2-3 first inning. Brittain Shander led off for the Mounties with a single, which was Mansfield's first hit of the season at home. It also extended his hit-streak to four games. Guidos sparked as well, dropping a single down the left field line. With runners on second and third, Eric Senior kept the inning alive with an infield single to load the bases for Mansfield. Dom Lopez then grounded a pitch towards the middle and reached first after West Chester's second basemen Jon Hansen was unable to come up with the ball cleanly. Josh Kulina scored on the play, giving Mansfield a 1-0 lead. West Chester's starting pitcher Zach Rice was able to work out of the jam himself with a strikeout.
 
In what became a battle of the starting pitchers, Guidos then struck out two more Golden Rams in the second inning. Kyle Feaster led off the third for WCU with a single on the first pitch he saw. Guidos overpowered the next batter with some high cheese, but West Chester's leading hitter Jared Melone struck for a huge two-out knock to tie the game. Melone and Feaster both rank at the top of the PSAC leaderboard in batting average.
 
Jon Hansen made a beautiful play up the middle in the bottom half of the inning to rob Kulina of a leadoff single, which proved to be critical at the time. Guidos struck for another single, this time going up the middle. Brady Mengel then sent a hit down the third base line which advanced Guidos two bags. With a single already in the game, Senior drove a pitch to right field. The line drive was tracked down on a diving play by West Chester's right fielder Luke Cantwell.  Thanks to solid heads-up base running by Guidos, it went in the books as a sacrifice line drive. The Mounties' pitcher was able to help his own cause and arrive at the plate safely to regain the MU lead 2-1.
 
Following that hustle home, a fired-up Guidos returned to the mound to strike out the side in the top of the fourth.
 
Freshmen Shander and Koty Fitzgerald strung together a couple of hits in the bottom of the inning, to no avail. Fitzgerald's soft ground ball got through to left field, while another seeing-eye single from Shander made it into to opposite field, yet the score remained 2-1 until the top of the sixth.
 
West Chester took advantage of some defensive lapses by collecting three hits and working two walks on the way to their first lead of the game. They tacked on three runs in the sixth to double up on MU 4-2. From there, the Golden Rams tacked on three more runs in the top of the seventh and were able to shut down the Mounties 1-2-3 in their final two frames at the plate to close it out 7-2.
 
Rice went the distance on the mound, striking out five over seven innings while allowing eight hits. His MU counterpart Guidos went 5.2 innings and struck out a game-high nine batters.
 
Timmy Saar and Jake Manke pitched the remaining 1.1 innings.  Manke threw a full inning and didn't allow a run.
 
Cantwell and Joe Zirolli both scored twice and singled for West Chester. Feaster led the team with a 3-for-4 performance, driving in two runs and scoring once himself.
 
Guidos scored both Mountie runs on two hits while providing nine strikeouts from the mound in the loss.
 
 
GAME 2
 
Joseph DePerno matched Guidos' strikeout total in 3.2 innings of relief in the second game on Monday. After falling behind after the third inning, the senior's performance gave the Mounties a fighting chance to come back.
 
West Chester's David Mervis had other ideas however, and he was also solid from the mound. Mervis stifled the MU offense with 7 punchouts over five-and-a-third.
 
Both teams collected six hits, however JR Gifford's proved to be the only longball of the day. The West Chester catcher's solo shot in the top of the third started a four-run inning. Each of the Golden Rams' six hits were by different players. For Mansfield, Dom Lopez went 2-for-2 and Shander extended to a five-game hitting streak with another hit. Tony Brown produced a huge pinch-hit double to centerfield in the sixth inning, which set up a pinch-hit sacrifice fly from Carlos Espinosa to plate what would be the Mounties' only run of the game. Fitzgerald also has a hit-streak going on of his own, now batting safely in four consecutive games.
 
Manke worked another full inning of scoreless pitching in the seventh for Mansfield.
 
The Mounties next face East Stroudsburg this weekend, hosting the Warriors for a doubleheader on Friday and traveling on Saturday for two games. Games on both days begin at 1 p.m.  Coverage for Friday's home games at Shaute Field will be available at GoMounties.com and through @MUMounties official social media platforms. The live video broadcast is presented by Drew Patrick and Bob Michaels, and is made possible by Visit Potter-Tioga.