Arcadia narrowly escaped a scare on Friday by scoring two crucial runs in the eighth inning, securing a decisive 4-3 victory over Stevens at Skip Wilson Field in Game 1 of the best-of-three MAC Freedom semifinal series.
Tommy Ajjan delivered a triple to score Anthony Brunno with the tying run before Solomon Griffith followed immediately with a triple of his own to push Ajjan across with the eventual winning run.
The Knights carried a 2-0 lead into the seventh before Garret Wolf lashed a triple to center to score Stevens' first run of the afternoon. Wolf scored later in the frame to even the contest at 2-2. Michael Reyes delivered a sacrifice fly in the eighth to give the Ducks a short-lived 3-2 advantage.
Cam Nebel secured the win for the Knights, surrendering one run over 2 1/3 innings. Will Conroy pieced together a solid starting effort, hurling 6 2/3 frames while surrendering two runs on seven hits.
Ajjan and Griffith finished with two hits each for the Knights in the victory.
The best-of-three series resumes on Saturday at Skip Wilson Field with first pitch scheduled for 12 p.m. If Stevens wins, the two clubs will place a deciding Game 3 later in the day.
The victory improved the Knights to 30-10 on the year. The club entered the postseason ranked 20th in the nation by D3Baseball.com and No. 3 in the most recent regional power rankings.
