NIAGARA UNIV, N.Y. – A walk-off home run from Taylor Hackett in the bottom of the seventh gave the Niagara Purple Eagles an 8-7 win in game two and a split of Saturday's doubleheader at Bobo Field against the Fairfield Stags.
 
"I thought both games were good, hard-fought games, we just didn't come up big in the first one like we needed to," head coach Rob McCoy said. "We need to drive in runs when they present themselves and we're slowly starting to get there."
 
Game One
Strong pitching and a clutch hitting in the bottom of the ninth weren't enough as the Purple Eagles (10-20; 3-6 MAAC) fell 3-2 to the Stags (15-14; 7-3 MAAC) in the opener of twinbilling.
 
Facing a 2-1 deficit, Hayden Coll came off the bench and lead off the bottom of the ninth inning with a single up the middle. A SAC-bunt from  Hackett moved Coll into scoring position and a single to centerfield from Kevin Paulsen tied the game at 2-2.
 
Niagara hadn't given up a run since the first inning, but an unearned run in the top of the 10^th inning gave the Stags their final 3-2 lead.
 
The Stags jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but Jordan Schwartz rebounded quickly and kept the visitors in check through his final seven innings. The junior allowed just two runners to reach base between the second and eighth innings and neither runner reached second base. Schwartz finished with two earned runs on three hits and struck out nine over eight innings.
 
The Purple Eagles' first run came in the bottom of the eighth. Anthony Firenzi singled up the middle, moved into scoring position for the third time in the game, and was brought around by Michael Fuhrman to cut the deficit to 2-1.
 
Fuhrman finished with a game-high three hits in a 3-for-5 effort. Jacob Lysiak pitched two innings in relief and gave up two hits and an unearned run.
 
Game Two
Niagara faced a 7-5 deficit heading into the bottom of the seventh inning but Hackett' three-run homerun gave Niagara an 8-7 win.
 
With two outs on the board, Schwartz worked the count and got on base when he earned a walk. Pavel Chavez-Rusova, who already collected two doubles and two RBIs in the game, stood in and moved Schwartz over to second base after he got hit by a pitch to set the scene for Hackett. The redshirt freshman collected his second hit of the game when he launched a roundtripper over the wall in right field and gave his team the 8-7 win. 
 
"We've been talking about playing until the last out," said McCoy. "That's the one thing about baseball is that the clock doesn't run out so you can take your time and you can make sure that you're in every pitch. Taylor got a pitch and put a good swing on it, but the thing is that the two guys before him help set it up by getting a two-out walk and a two-out hit by pitch or else he can't do what he did."
 
Hackett turned in a team-high three RBIs. Kevin Lucas earned the win after pitching 1.2 shutout innings in relief.
 
After falling behind 1-0 early, the Purple Eagles stormed back with a four-run bottom of the first. Schwartz brought in a run and Chavez-Rusova's first double brought in two runs. The fourth run scored on a wild pitch.
 
Fairfield turned in a four-run inning of its own in the third and held a 6-5 lead heading into the fourth. Geoff Soja came out of the bullpen and turned in scoreless fourth and fifth innings, but the Stags tacked on another run in the sixth to extend the lead to 7-5 when Lucas entered the game and shut the door.
 
"We pitched well," McCoy said. "Guys came out of the pen in the second game to keep us in it enough to come back and the defense was good all day.

Firenzi's single in the fourth inning extended his current hit-streak to 16 games and the freshman has collected two hits in each of his last four games.
 
The rubber game of this weekend's series is scheduled for tomorrow at noon.