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| Warr and the Highlanders advance to the UEC Final Four. | PHOTO: Cairn Athletics |
Well, that escalated quickly.
The United East Baseball Championship opened Friday, and Cairn didn’t just advance — they blew the doors off. The No. 5 Highlanders went on the road and swept past No. 4 Penn College with a 12-5 win and a 19-14 slugfest that looked more like a football score. Hello, Final Four.
Before the chaos really set in, senior centerfielder Will Wikner quietly notched his 100th career hit with a single through the right side. But it didn’t stay quiet for long. Penn launched a pair of early solo homers to take a 2-0 lead, only to watch Cairn storm right back as Zach Bauers walked, Andrew Holt doubled, and Tyler Harris delivered a two-run double to tie things up.
Penn kept punching, stretching the lead to 5-2 through seven innings. But in the eighth, Cairn erupted. Dylan Jackson walked, Wikner and Tyler Warr singled, Holt doubled home the tying runs, and Ben Gagnon and Harris came through with go-ahead hits. By the time Holt crushed a ninth-inning homer and Zachary Dennis slammed the door on the mound, Cairn had turned a 5-2 hole into a 12-5 statement win.
And then came Game 2, where things got downright bonkers. Penn jumped out 4-0 in the second inning. Jackson answered with a three-run homer. Cairn roared ahead with six runs in the fourth, three more in the fifth, only to watch Penn claw all the way back and even take a 13-12 lead in the sixth. But this wasn’t going to be Penn’s night. The Highlanders stacked up seven more runs over the final three innings, capped by more fireworks from Harris, Wikner, and Jackson, to lock down a 19-14 win that secured their spot in the championship series.
The final box score was the stuff of baseball fever dreams. Harris and Nathan Schurga racked up four hits each. Wikner added three more to his milestone day. Jackson drove in six runs, tying a team season high, while Holt finished with five RBIs, two doubles, and a homer. On the mound, Greg Jessup picked up the win in relief, and freshman Josh Smeltzer Jr. finished the job with a three-inning save.
Oh, and one more thing: the sweep didn’t just send Cairn into the Final Four. It also shattered the program’s single-season wins record with 27 and delivered head coach Brett Marks his 100th career victory. Not bad for a Friday.
The Highlanders will open the final round of the UEC tournament on Friday.
In other UEC action, Penn State Abington was swept by St. Mary's in a best-of-three series. The Nittany Lions conclude their year with a 17-20 record.
