AMHERST, N.Y. – The Purple Eagles split the final non-conference outing of the season on Tuesday with a 5-4 win and a 6-5 loss against the State University of New York at Buffalo.
 
Game One
Owen Dziados collected a pair of RBIs and Austin Miller pitched five innings of two-run baseball to help Niagara (13-29-2) to a 5-4 victory over Buffalo (16-32).
 
The Purple Eagles erased a 1-0 deficit in the second inning. Dziados singled to right and advanced to third after Taylor Hackett doubled to center. He came across the plate when Julian Gallup sent a hard-hit grounder to shortstop.  They took a 3-1 lead in the next inning when Dziados crushed a double to left field that scored Christian Vangeison and Joel Brophy.
 
The Bulls climbed within one in the bottom half of the third, but were help scoreless by Miller and Matt McCuen in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings while NU extended its lead. Hackett led off the sixth with a double to center before stealing third and scoring on a single by Gallup. Niagara scored what would go down as the winning run in the seventh when Vangeison sent a single to center that scored Tanner Kirwer from second to take a 5-2 lead.
 
UB scored in the last of the seventh with on an error and an RBI- single, but McCuen got a strikeout and a ground out to end the inning and cement the 5-4 win.  
 
Thomas Rodrigues and Dziados both went 2-for-4. Miller finished with two runs on eight hits and four strikeouts through five innings for his first win of the season. McCuen pitched the final two innings and gave up two unearned runs on three hits and three strikeouts to earn his third save of the season.
 
Game Two
The Purple Eagles and Bulls traded two-run innings early in a 6-5 NU loss that closed out the final non-conference series of the season.
 
Gallup earned the first RBI of the game in the top of the second and Hackett was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give NU a 2-0 lead. After UB tied the game in the bottom of the frame, Tyler Lau hit a two-run homerun over the fence in left to restore the two-run lead, 4-2. The Bulls responded in their half of the inning with a RBI triple and a RBI single to square the game heading into the fourth.
 
A single in the bottom of the fourth gave the Bulls their first lead of the game, 5-4. Rodrigues led off the sixth with a single and was brought around two batters later by Hackett's double to left-center to tie the game at 5-5.
 
UB took the lead back with a double in the bottom of the sixth. The Purple Eagles had runners on second and third with two outs in the top of the seventh, but were unable to get a runner across the plate to fall 6-5.
 
Lau led the way on offense going 2-for-4 with the homerun, two RBIs, and two runs scored. Tyler Saundry started on the mound, but Dienston Manuela took the loss after giving up the run in the sixth.
 
Niagara wraps up the 2015 regular season with a three-game series against the Canisius Golden Griffins. Thursday's doubleheader and Friday's single game both begin at noon.
 
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