JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – The Shippensburg University baseball team plated three runs in the bottom of the first inning Wednesday morning and never looked back, posting a 9-2 triumph over Slippery Rock in the opening game of the 2017 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Baseball Championships held at Point Stadium.
 
Shippensburg (29-20-1) scored runs in five different innings and received a splendid complete-game pitching performance from junior Gabe Mosser to win its first PSAC Tournament contest since 2012, snapping a six-game losing streak in the conference playoffs.
 
Mosser needed just 98 pitches to complete nine innings, allowing two runs on five hits for his seventh victory of the season. He entered the eighth having retired 14 consecutive hitters and yielding only one hit to that point – a seeing-eye triple in the third inning that evaded a pair of Raider fielders who were sprinting toward the ball hit into the stadium's nebulous area in right-center field.
 
Tuesday's victory marks the first complete-game effort in the PSAC Tournament by a Raider pitcher since, ironically, Nick Umberger achieved the feat in SU's last PSAC Tournament win – a 7-3 triumph over Mercyhurst in Butler in 2012.  
 
Shippensburg totaled nine hits, receiving at least one hit from seven different players. Sophomores Jack Goertzen and Tommy Baggett each had two hits; Goertzen also delivered a pair of RBIs, while Baggett and sophomore Drew Bene contributed doubles for SU's lone extra-base hits of the game.
 
In the three-run bottom of the first, senior Jake Kennedy jammed a seeing-eye single up the middle with two outs to plate senior Ryan McMillen – who opened the game with a leadoff walk. Junior Dalton Hoiles walked to precede the first RBI single by Goertzen. Hoiles then scored on a wild pitch.
 
A two-out RBI single in the fourth by junior Grant Hoover made it 4-1 for Shippensburg before a three-run fifth inning helped the Raiders pull away. After two outs to start the fifth, sophomore Cash Gladfelter was hit by a pitch and Kennedy drew a four-pitch walk. Hoiles then hit a ball that went through the wickets of The Rock's second baseman, scoring Gladfelter and extending the inning.
 
With new life, Goertzen singled through the right side to plate Kennedy, and Bene doubled over the third-base bag to plate Hoiles. SU later added an RBI groundout from Gladfelter in the sixth and a sacrifice fly from junior Nick Spangler in the eighth.
 
Mosser was incredibly efficient – yielding just two hits through the first eight innings. He did not throw more than 17 pitches in any inning; a six-pitch seventh inning and a seven-pitch eighth inning helped him last through the finish.
 
Shippensburg, now No. 5 in the latest edition of the Atlantic Region rankings released Wednesday afternoon, will play nationally-ranked No. 3 Mercyhurst at 3:30 p.m. Thursday in Game 7 of the 2017 PSAC Baseball Championships. The Lakers, the Western Division No. 1 seed and the No. 1 team in the Atlantic Region, routed East Stroudsburg by a 14-0 score in Game 2 of the tournament.