PETERSBURG, Va. – The Niagara Purple Eagles split Sunday's doubleheader against the Bucknell Bison with a 2-1 win in the first game and a 6-5 loss in the second.
 
"We are a good ball club when we pitch and play defense," head coach Rob McCoy said. "We need to improve upon those two areas for next weekend's series."
 
Game One
Cody Eckerson got the win and Geoff Soja earned the first save of the season as Niagara (4-7) won the first game of the day 2-1.
 
Eckerson, a freshman, gave up three hits, struck out four, and issued one walk in his four innings of work. The run Bucknell (4-5) scored on the lefty in the fourth was unearned. Soja came out of the bullpen and threw two innings of scoreless baseball. He gave up two hits.
 
"The first game was solid," said McCoy. "We pitched extremely well and grinded out at bats. The defense was a little shaky, but we handled that adversity well."
 
Niagara opened the scoring in the second with a RBI double from Greg Rodgers. The Bison tied the game with the aforementioned unearned run in the fourth, but the tie was short-lived as NU took the lead back in the fifth inning. Two consecutive singles from Anthony Firenzi and Kevin Paulsen put runners on for Michael Fuhrman. He sent a double to center field that plated Firenzi and gave NU the 2-1 lead.
 
Joel Klock added another double for the Purple Eagles with one out in the seventh, but did not cross the plate. Niagara was able to hold onto the one run lead as they shut the door in the sixth and seventh.
 
Game Two
Niagara scored early and often throughout the first four innings but were outlasted by the Bison in the late game of Sunday's twin billing.
 
Fuhrman, Jordan Schwartz and Geoff Seto all brought in runs to give the Purple Eagles the 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the second. After Bucknell took a one-run lead in its half of the third, Robert Hansen collected his second hit of the day with a two-run homerun in the top of the fourth to give his team a 5-3 lead.
 
Bucknell answered with two runs in the bottom of the frame and added another in the sixth on the way to the 6-5 win.
 
"The second game was disappointing," McCoy said. "We had our chances to score and we didn't capitalize. Our defense, again, made a couple of costly mistakes."
 
Rodgers finished the game 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs. Drew Fittry started on the mound and went five innings with four earned runs on seven hits and five strikeouts.
 
The Purple Eagles are back in action this Friday when they open the Philly Big 5 tournament against Villanova at 2:15 p.m. They will also face Temple and Saint Joseph's in the three-day tournament.