NIAGARA UNIV, N.Y. – The Niagara Purple Eagles split the Sunday afternoon doubleheader against the Quinnipiac Bobcats with a 5-2 victory in game one and a 6-4 loss in game two.
 
Game One
The Bobcats (6-16; 3-3 MAAC) had trouble getting their offense started as Jordan Schwartz kept them off the board through the first three innings.  The starter for the Purple Eagles (8-17; 2-4) followed a three-up, three-down first with a strikeout, single, and a double play to end the second. The third inning was kept alive with a two-out error, but Schwartz forced a swinging strikeout to end the inning.

"We pitched well in game one," head coach Rob McCoy said. "We even made some mistakes on defense and we pitched around them. We did a good job with the bats and had some timely hitting, so that's good."

The visitors broke through with an unearned run by Quinnipiac in the top of the fourth broke the scoreless tie, but the lead would be short lived as Niagara got on the board in the bottom half of the inning. Kevin Paulsen led off the bottom of the frame with a single then stole second to get into scoring position.
 
Greg Rodgers attempted to bunt over Paulsen and Michael Fuhrman, who had drawn a walk, but a throwing error by Thomas Janki allowed the third baseman to reach safely and scored Paulsen from second. Taylor Hackett came to the plate three batters later and hit a two-out single to left that scored a pair to give his team the 3-1 lead.
 
Niagara added another two runs in the bottom half of the sixth to extend the lead to 5-1. Quinnipiac scored in the top of the seventh to get within three, but that was as close as they would get.
 
Schwartz went on to get the win after giving up three hits and striking out eight over 6.2 innings. Kevin Lucas was called into the game with the bases loaded in the top of the seventh but shut the door and went on to pitch 1.1 innings of scoreless baseball. Geoff Soja pitched the ninth inning to collect his third save of the season.
 
Hackett led at the plate with a game-high two RBIs.
 
Game Two
Niagara rallied twice in the second game, but came up short dropping a 6-4 decision to close out the doubleheader.
 
Just as in the opener, the Bobcats opened the scoring and briefly held a one-run lead, this time in the second inning. Again Niagara responded and tied the game in the third with a sacrifice fly from Anthony Firenzi that scored Pavel Chavez-Rusova. In the bottom of the fourth, it was Chavez-Rusova that drove in the run when he brought Fuhrman around to score to give NU the 2-1 lead.
 
The fifth inning saw Quinnipiac score three runs to take a 4-2 lead before the Purple Eagles again clawed back to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth. Singles from Rodgers and Joel Klock put two runners on base. Schwartz brought one in with a sacrifice fly. Chavez-Rusova collected his second RBI of the game with a single to right center and tied the game at 4-4.
 
Two runs in the top of the seventh gave QU a lead it would hold onto with a 6-4 win.

"We made too many mistakes in game two," McCoy said. "I mean, we made mistakes on defense, we made mistakes on the mound, but we had some timely hitting and the guys fought back. They played hard, we just didn't come out on top. Tomorrow we need to play better and more sound baseball."
 
Drew Fittry started on the mound and gave up three runs and struck out six through 4.2 innings. Jacob Lysiak took the loss out of the bullpen. Chavez-Rusova finished the game 2-for-3 at the plate with a pair of RBIs.
 
These teams finish the series tomorrow morning with a 10:30 first pitch at Bobo Field.