Lehigh baseball was defeated by Lafayette in a pitching duel on Wednesday afternoon at J. David Walker Field with a final score of 3-2.
The Mountain Hawks now go into this weekend’s series against Army losing two straight, but are still 9-4 overall in conference play after winning two out of three against Bucknell this past weekend.
The Patriot League is split up into two regions this year, north and south, due to COVID-19 restricting travel. Lehigh sits in first place in the south, and Army sits in first place in the north.
Lehigh starting pitcher Luke Rettig and Lafayette starting pitcher Jordan Yoder had excellent outings in Wednesday’s game.
Rettig finished the game throwing six scoreless innings and striking out 10 batters, while Yoder pitched seven innings, giving up one run and striking out eight batters.
“Luke (Rettig) was outstanding today,” said head coach Sean Leary. “The only tough part when you’re striking out so many is that you run your pitch count up.”
In the third inning, Rettig got into two-out trouble after back-to-back two-out hits, but then Rettig got Lafayette batter, Pete Ciuffreda, to strike out swinging to end the third inning threat.
In the fifth inning, Lehigh had its own two-out rally after Eric Cichocki got hit by a pitch and Gerard Sweeney was walked. Casey Rother came through with a two-out RBI single to give Lehigh a 1-0 lead.
In the seventh inning, the Leopards claimed the lead, scoring two runs on three hits and taking a 2-1 lead.
Lafayette extended their lead to 3-1 in the eighth inning after Seif Ingram doubled into left field, scoring Ciuffreda.
Adam Retzbach started a ninth-inning comeback with a leadoff home run for Lehigh to cut the lead to 3-2, however, Lafayette pitcher Nolan More ended the game striking out Cichocki.
“We have got to continue to build on the positives,” Leary said. “Our starting pitching has been outstanding, and we essentially wasted a starting effort by Luke (Rettig) today. We know what we have, and we know what our strength is.”
Lehigh looks to bounce back against Army after two tough losses this week, playing a doubleheader at J. David Walker Field on Saturday and then traveling to West Point on Sunday for another doubleheader against the Black Knights.
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