Box Score
Langhorne, PA - The Highlanders withstood a late John Jay rally to hold on for a 6-5 win and head into Saturday's NCCAA East Region Championship bout on a positive note.
The win, the eighth of the season, is a high mark for the baseball program since 10 wins in the 2007 season.
Cairn were trailing in the early inning after the visitors notched two runs in the first, before knotting things up in the fourth. Freshman
Caleb Lang ignited the offense with a homerun that sailed well beyond the fence, his fourth of the season, followed by
Kyle Parisi's ground-rule double that score
Austin Arseneau.
John Jay briefly jumped ahead in the top of the sixth before the Highlanders responded with another two-run inning, jumping in front 4-3.
In the bottom of the fourth, Cairn extended its advantage to 6-3 when
Chad Hollinger was driven in by Arseneau's single looper into the outfield.
Kenneth Searle drove in Arseneau to complete the scoring for the host.
That scoreline held until the top of the ninth when the visitors started to threaten. John Jay used two hits and two Cairn errors to make for a tense ending, scoring two runs and bringing the score to 6-5. Perhaps the play of the inning came on a wild pitch from Caleb Lang, but he and catcher
Ben Cardillo combined well to throw out John Jay's Dennis Lopez at home plate. With the tying run on second base and the go-ahead run on first, Lang got the final batter swinging at air for the final out.
Kyle Parisi had a solid afternoon, going 3 for 4. Austin Arseneau scored three times and batted in two runners, finishing 2 for 3. Ken Searle also recorded two RBIs on his 2 for 4 day.
Cairn used five different pitchers to get the job done on the day, with
Michael DeLuca getting the win, his fourth of the season. Caleb Lang earned his second save of the season.
Cairn is 8-30 on the season heading into Saturday's final with Lancaster Bible College. The winner will move on to the NCCAA National Championship tournament. The Highlanders have qualified for the tournament only once before, in 2011.
