The Shippensburg University baseball team came up just short in a pair of one-run games at Catawba on Saturday, falling by scores of 6-5 (10 innings) and 2-1 in action on a 65-degree day at sunny Newman Park.
 
Shippensburg (0-5) got strong pitching Saturday, allowing just three earned runs and three extra-base hits in 15-plus innings of work. Three Raiders had multiple hits on the day, and graduate JuJu Cason reached base four times in the doubleheader.
 
Shippensburg will finish its three-game series against Catawba (3-3) at noon tomorrow at Newman Park.
 
Game 1: Catawba 6, Shippensburg 5 (10 innings)
 
In Game 1, a scheduled nine-inning game that went extras, the Raiders established a five-run lead after scoring three times in the first and single runs in the second and fifth inning.
 
Graduate Matt Shilling went 2-for-5 with a pair of doubles, three RBIs and two runs scored. His two-run double in the first inning opened the scoring, and he added another run-scoring double in the second.  
 
Graduate JuJu Cason reached base safely three times from the leadoff spot. Cason singled, drew two walks, stole a base and scored a run.
 
Senior Ben Werkheiser batted 2-for-4 with a walk and delivered an RBI-triple in the fifth inning that made it 5-0 at the time. Sophomore Andrew Chronister had an RBI-single in the first.
 
Redshirt-junior Nick Zegna delivered an excellent start from the mound. Zegna retired the first 11 men he faced and finished the day throwing six innings. He allowed four runs (only one earned), scattered five hits and struck out three.
 
Junior Noah Nabholz threw 2.2 innings in relief. He did allow the tying run in the seventh but escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the inning with a strikeout and a flyout. Sophomore Ethan Miller entered the game in the ninth inning with the winning run in scoring position and recorded a strikeout to send the contest into extras.
 
Catawba's Cameron Mills was 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Braxton Davis was 2-for-4 with a walk, and two runs scored. Dawson Painter hit a sixth-inning inning homer and Cameron Mills delivered a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th.
 
Game 2: Catawba 2, Shippensburg 1
 
In Game 2, a scheduled seven-inning game, SU got its only hit in the sixth inning when junior Justin Darden delivered a pinch-hit solo home run with one out.
 
Sophomore Kaleb Sophy went the distance for the Raiders on the mound, striking out five, scattering four singles and allowing just two unearned runs.
 
Catawba's leadoff man Joe Butts reached base in all three of his plate appearances (single, walk, hit by pitch), stole three bases, and scored both Indian runs. Butts scored on an error on a stolen-base attempt by Mills in the third inning and scored on a passed ball in the fifth inning.
 
Indian starter Maddux Holshouser threw five hitless and scoreless innings for the win, walking two and striking out five. Painter got the save with a scoreless seventh.