BALTIMORE - Dickinson baseball sophomore pitcher
Koll Peichel hurled a complete game four-hitter with a career-high 15 strikeouts and got some early offense to send the Red and White to Championship Sunday after eliminating the second-seeded Franklin & Marshall College 8-0 in the fourth meeting between the teams in the last week-and-a-half this time at Babb Field on the campus of Johns Hopkins University.
Time of Game - 2:18
Pitching Decision
W -
Koll Peichel (6-2) | L - Dan Galef (6-1)
Inside the Game
Facing their second "win or go home" game of the day Dickinson got off to the fast start as
Kenny Tagliareni opened things up with a single, before
Andrew Mazzone crushed an 0-2 offering from Dan Galef over the center-field fence for the early 2-0 lead. The Devils had a chance to add-on with singles from
Derek Smith and
Ryan Thompson along with a walk to
Christian Kim loading the bases with two down. Unfortunately,
Dylan Posencheg went down swinging to retire the side. Peichel was strong through the first two innings as he struck out three, while allowing just a walk and a single to send the game to the third still at 2-0. Dickinson went to work in the third with
Matt Torres leading things off with a walk, before a two-bagger to right from Thompson put two in scoring position with no one out. After a strikeout of Kim, Posencheg popped up to right which allowed Torres to race home.
Nathan Bowman followed with a groundout to second to end the rally. Peichel continued to keep the Diplomat hitters off-balance over the next two innings as he recorded a three more K's and allowed just one base-runner on a walk to leave the lead at 3-0 into the fifth.
The Red and White would break the game open during the fifth as Torres and Thompson blasted back-to-back homers to kickoff the frame making it 5-0. A single from Kim kept the train moving and chased Galef from the game as Grant Burgess entered from the bullpen. He setdown the first two men he faced, before Tagliareni reached on an error which let Kim come across. The next man into the box was Mazzone and he deposited the first pitch he saw from Burgess over the fence in right to stretch the margin out to 8-0 through four-and-a-half.
The remainder of the game belonged to Peichel as he surrendered just three hits over the final five frames, while whiffing nine Diplomat batters to secure the victory.
Record Breaker
With his two performances today Sigmon is now the new Dickinson single-season leader for total bases (97), hits (63) and RBIs (38). The previous record holders in the respective categories: for total bases was 89 held by Ben Motter in 1997, hits was 58 belonging to Andrew Sterling in 2012 and RBIs was 37 set in 1995 also by Ben Motter.
The On-Deck Circle
Dickinson (24-17-1) now advances to Championship Sunday where they will need to knockoff the host and number one team in the nation Johns Hopkins University twice. The Devils will attempt to force an "all or nothing" scenario with a victory in game one beginning at noon.
