The Rowan baseball team cruised to a 21-4 victory over fellow conference opponent the Rutgers-Newark Scarlet Raiders on Friday, April 25 in Glassboro. The game marked Rowan’s final home regular season game and improved their record to 27-8, while also lengthening their win streak to nine.

The game might as well have been over as soon as it started. After Rutgers-Newark put up a zero in their half of the first inning, Rowan exploded for nine runs. The Profs sent 15 batters to the plate with Tyler Cannon having a particularly big inning. The first baseman recorded two hits, two RBIs and crossed the plate twice. Nick Struble recorded two RBIs of his own while five other Profs hitters recorded an RBI in the inning. From there on, Head coach Mike Dickson’s main goal was making sure his team stayed locked in for the remainder of the game.

“We try to always promote playing without a scoreboard,” Dickson said. “You have to continue to stay focused and continue to take good swings. It’s easy to get complacent and give away some at-bats, but I thought for the most part we did a good job of continuing to fight.”

The message certainly got through to Phil Sedalis. The senior had arguably his best game as a Prof, finishing 4-6 with two home runs, one of those being a grand slam to total eight RBIs on the day. The eight RBIs were a career-high and Sedalis finished one RBI short of tying the Rowan all-time record for RBIs in a game. 

“I don’t really try to think about it, I didn’t even realize that was a career-high,” Sedalis said. “It just feels good to help the team win. Obviously coming out with a 21-4 win feels pretty good.”

While Sedalis’ and his teammates’ monster offensive output was the main story, the pitching was another important takeaway from the game. 

Freshman pitcher Austin Kreyerhagen pitched five strong innings, allowing only one run in the outing. This followed up his last start at TCNJ where he went 6.2 innings, allowed three runs and struck out 10. Dickson talked about the emergence of Kreyerhagen during the team’s stretch in conference play. 

“We don’t get many freshmen that start for us that often,” Dickson said. “But he was really good in the fall and he earned that spot. He’s proven that he can pitch in those games for us.”

Other key performers on the day included Struble, who went 3-6 with a home run and three RBIs. Marco Mannino matched his season-high with four hits and Cannon went 3-4 with four RBIs.

In the big picture, the win all but cemented that Rowan will be the No. 2 seed in the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Championship tournament, as improved their record to 12-4 in NJAC play with just two regular season games left. After tying their season-high for runs scored in a game, coupled with their nine-game win streak, the Profs appear to be hitting their stride at exactly the right time.

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