LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. - The Purple Eagles were scheduled to play 16 innings in Good Friday's doubleheader at Siena College. Both contests went into extra innings, as the two teams played 23 innings of baseball in the Friday split.

Siena (10-14, 1-1 MAAC) forced extras in the scheduled nine-inning game one, and won 3-2 in the bottom of the 11th. The Purple Eagles (7-19, 3-2 MAAC) rebounded by forcing extras in the scheduled seven-inning contest, when freshman catcher Wes Walker plated the winning run in the top of the 12th inning with an RBI single.

Last season, the two teams turned the seven-inning game into a 14-inning affair.

Siena 3, Niagara 2 (11)
Game one was a classic pitchers duel, with both starters tossing gems with help of some terrific defense behind them.

Senior Daniel Morari went through the first eight innings with ease, holding the powerful Saint offense to just three hits. The Purple Eagle offense gave the lefthander a 2-0 lead on a solo home run by senior Matt Wietlispach in the third and a sacrifice fly off the bat of freshman catcher Evan Wexler in the seventh.

But the heart of the Saints order got to Morari in the ninth inning, scoring their first run on a one-out RBI triple and then a sacrifice fly to tie the score and force extra innings.

Morari finished the day with his best outing of the season, allowing five hits and two runs in 8.1 innings of work. He struck out six, walked one and faced the minimum in four innings. Siena's Kyle Sumple held NU to four hits and two runs in nine innings.

The Saints defense took away a hit from Trevor Rutkowski, when his laser that seemed to be destined for right field was scooped and brilliantly turned into a 4-6-3 double play.

But the best double play of the day was turned in by the Niagara defense in the 10th inning. With a runner on first base and one down, Siena took a gamble and sent the runner in motion. The batter lined a bullet right back up the middle that deflected off pitcher Dennis Chachko and straight into the glove of freshman first baseman Ryan McCauley's mitt. The rookie stepped on first to end the inning.

NU stranded a runner at third in the top of the 11th, and Siena scratched a run across after a leadoff double and a two-out single.

Niagara 5, Siena 4 (12)
Walker doubled home Jason Cramer in the top of the six to knot the score at 4-4 and force extra innings. The pair would eventually end the game six innings later, when Cramer slid ahead of the tag in the 12th inning after Walker collected his first career game-winning hit with a single to right field.

The late-game heroics overshadowed another pair of great pitching performances. Rookie Tyler Scott allowed four runs in the first two innings, but combined with senior Brian Deering to post 10-straight scoreless innings. Scott tossed the first four, and Deering entered in relief and posted six-straight zeroes on the Siena scoreboard.

Rutkowski and Cramer both collected three hits in the second game, while Walker tallied two hits and two RBIs.