JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – The Shippensburg University baseball team dropped a slugfest to the Western Division's top seed, No. 3 Mercyhurst, by an 18-6 score on Friday morning in Game 7 of the 2017 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Baseball Championships from a cold and grey Point Stadium.
 
Shippensburg (29-21-1) will now face Slippery Rock (27-19) in an elimination game at approximately 4:30 p.m. Friday. Mercyhurst (36-4) advances into the championship portion of the bracket. SU will have to win this afternoon and twice more this weekend if it is to claim the conference championship.  

The Lakers opened with a four-run salvo in the top of the first inning, but the Raiders countered with a run in the second inning on a two-out single by junior Grant Hoover and three more in the third to tie the score, 4-4. Junior Nick Spangler knocked an RBI single before junior Dalton Hoiles shot a two-run single up the middle.
 
Mercyhurst answered with a run in the fourth, but sophomore Tommy Baggett responded by pulverizing a ball into downtown Johnstown that made the score 5-5. It was Baggett's fourth home run of the season.
 
Shippensburg chased Mercyhurst starter Russell Lamovec in the fourth. Lamovec entered Friday's start having thrown 20 consecutive scoreless innings with 23 strikeouts. The Raiders forced Lamovec to yield a season-high five runs and eight hits in just 3.1 innings of work.
 
The score was 6-5 after five innings but Mercyhurst's bats would not relent: scoring one in the fifth, four in the sixth, one in the seventh, and seven in the ninth. Sophomore Cash Gladfelter got a run back in the sixth with an RBI double, but that would prove to be the final scoring of the day for the Raiders.
 
Senior Ryan McMillen had three hits on the day, including two doubles high into the "screen monster" in Point Stadium's left field that likely would have traveled out of most ballparks. Gladfelter was 3-for-4 with the RBI double and a walk.
 
On the mound, redshirt-freshman Zack Sims took the loss for the Raiders, yielding eight earned runs in five-plus innings of work while striking out four. Freshman Jacob Menders, freshman Kyle Lysy, sophomore Tyler Butcher, freshman Jack Jenkens and freshman Zach Amisano combined to get the final 12 outs.