Albright College Athletics

WEST LAWN, Pa. - In day one of the 2009 Commonwealth Conference tournament senior lefty Tim Flannery (Mechanicsburg, PA/Cumberland Valley) guided the number four ranked Lions to a 6-4 upset victory over the number one ranked Blue Jays of Elizabethtown College Thursday afternoon at Owls Field at Ted Palka Park. 

With the win, the Lions improved their overall record to 18-16-1, while Elizabethtown fell to 23-13 overall.

Prior to the start of Thursday’s crucial tournament match-up Flannery was announced as the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Pitcher of the Week. The national weekly honor is given to the best Division III pitcher and player every Thursday. To qualify for the national honor, the player must first be named their conference’s pitcher or player of the week.

The Mechanicsburg, Pa. native threw all nine innings for the red and white and totaled 10 strikeouts to bring his record setting season total to 83. Within those nine innings, Flannery surrendered just four runs on eight hits, while only walking one batter.

For the top ranked Blue Jays, senior righty Sam Heaps threw seven complete innings allowing six runs on nine hits, while also walking one other. Heaps also fanned a total of nine Albright hitters. Closing out the contest for the Etown was Matt Kutz. Kutz threw two innings and did not surrender a hit or a run.

Offensively, the Lions were paced by senior third baseman Jason Dunkelberger (Shillington, PA/Governor Mifflin) and sophomore shortstop Justin Danser (Ewing, NJ/Ewing). Dunkelberger went 2-for-5 on the day with one RBI and two runs, while Danser went 3-for-5 with two runs.

Despite striking out in his first and last at-bats, Dunkelberger recorded back-to-back hits in the middle part of the contest to help put Albright ahead on the scoreboard. His second hit of the afternoon was a one run home run over the right field fence that put Albright up 4-3 in the top of the fifth.

In the fourth, the Lions put up three runs to make it a 3-2 ball game, after Elizabethtown put a pair of runs in the bottom half of the second. The Blue Jays evened the score at 3-3 in the bottom half of the fourth on a RBI groundout by Matt Reade.

Albright went on to take their second lead of the afternoon in the seventh, and then added to it with another run in the top of the eighth.

On the day Albright gave up just two errors and totaled nine hits. Elizabethtown was charged with four errors and combined for eight hits.

The Blue Jays will take on Lebanon Valley College at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning in game three of the tournament. The loser of the contest will be eliminated from this year’s tournament. The Dutchmen were defeated by Widener in game two of Thursday’s doubleheader by the final score of 16-2 by Widener University.

Widener will face Albright at 3 p.m. at Owls Field in a game that will send one team to the championship game on Saturday. The loser of the Albright/Widener game will take on the winner of the Lebanon Valley/Elizabethtown College at 7:30 p.m. to determine the final team that will play in the championship game.