Article Courtesy of Tom Bonekember, Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League
Nick Beinlich Photo Courtesy of Belmont Abbey Athletics

Nick Beinlich (Belmont Abbey, Lehigh Valley Catz, 2014) has hit 20 home runs and is tied for second in the NCAA Division II statistics.

Beinlich, a speedy RS-junior outfielder, leads off for Belmont Abbey and has a .387 average with 29 stolen bases. He is in the elite 20-20 club with 20 home runs and 29 stolen bases.

The Easton Pa. native was named Conference Carolinas Player of the Year and his walk off 11th inning home run gave Belmont Abbey a win in the first round of conference playoffs. Beinlich went three-for-five on Saturday and the Crusaders advance to the Conference Championship game on Sunday.

By Greg Joyce | lehighvalleylive.com

Ben Suter lived life on the dangerous side Thursday afternoon.

With his Nazareth baseball team already trailing Easton 2-0 in the third inning, Suter loaded the bases with one out. He then buckled down and struck out the next two batters.

Again in the fourth, the Red Rovers put runners on every bag with two outs and couldn't cash in as Suter got a fly ball to keep it a two-run game.   

"I just figured if we were going to win this game, we can't give up a lot of runs," the pitcher said. "So I just fought through it." Suter's offense soon rewarded him for it as the Blue Eagles rallied for four runs in the top of the fifth en route to a 5-2 win over Easton at Richards Field.

"Really, (Suter) won us the game getting out of those two innings," Nazareth coach Bryan Wolf said. "That's a huge EPC win for us. Any time you come down to Easton on their home field and get a W, that's huge."

The Blue Eagles (7-4) have now won four straight and are surging at the right time as they enter the gauntlet part of their schedule. The win over the Red Rovers (4-4), Nazareth's first since 2013, comes on the heels of a 7-5 win at Whitehall on Wednesday.

Senior Cade Stoneback drove in the winning run in both games. On Wednesday, it was a three-run home run in the seventh inning and on Thursday it was a line drive single that scored Ian Henderson and made it a 3-2 game.

"I was just keeping my head small, looking for singles," Stoneback said. "We have excellent momentum. We're playing better as a team, we're actually awake in the dugout now and our bats are coming alive tremendously."

Henderson, Steven Stasolla and Nick Skirtich each drove in a run in the inning, with some help from a pair of Red Rovers errors.

With the 4-2 lead in hand, Suter went back to the mound in the bottom of the fifth and came through with a shutdown, 1-2-3 inning. Then after Nazareth added a run in the sixth, he did the same thing again in the bottom of the inning.

"That was huge," Suter said. "The morale just had a huge swing over to our dugout after that."

The junior pointed to his fastball command as key to getting out of the jams. He located the heaters when he needed to most, finishing the day throwing six-plus innings with six strikeouts while scattering eight hits and two walks.

"Ben's the ultimate competitor and when he's on the mound, he thinks he is going to beat the opposing team no matter who it is," Wolf said. "The way Ben is, he's fearless."

Stoneback relieved Suter with a man on first in the top of the seventh and needed just five pitches to pin down the save.

Henderson went 3-for-3 out of the leadoff spot with a run and a pair of RBIs while No. 9 batter and senior shortstop Kevin Wagner added a pair of hits and a sacrifice bunt that led to a run.

The Blue Eagles had hit the ball hard in the early innings but often found gloves — including a pair of stellar grabs by Easton center fielder Cam Hubbard and shortstop Sean Boylan. They stuck to the same approach, though, and it finally paid off late.

"I kept telling them when they came off the field from defense that we were having really good at-bats," Wolf said. "The balls weren't falling, but I just kind of told them to keep having good at-bats, they'll fall. They did. We kept good approaches all day, hit line drives, ran around the bases a little bit and made things happen."

Hubbard added a 3-for-4 day at the dish with a run scored for the Red Rovers and Eddie Olsen and Boylan each added RBI singles, but clutch hits were otherwise tough to come by.

"I believe the game was lost when we had bases loaded in consecutive innings and didn't score," Easton coach Carm LaDuca said. "We could have lengthened that lead and made the game a whole different kind of game. And then defensively, we fell apart in that (fifth) inning. … It was very frustrating today because we feel like we had the opportunity to win that ballgame and we didn't execute." The Red Rovers still have a chance to win three out of four games this week if they can bounce back Saturday against Bethlehem Catholic.

"Credit to Nazareth for getting out of it (the jams), but we talked about having better at-bats and doing a better job," LaDuca said. "Our practices have been all about putting balls in play with less than two outs and giving yourself up to get those runs in. The kids are trying and I'm not slighting them. This is a difficult game, as we all know."