The Emory University baseball team salvaged a series split with No. 25 ranked University of Chicago as the Eagles won the weekend finale by a count of 11-7 Sunday afternoon at Chappell Park in Atlanta.
Senior trio Matthew Sicoli, Jack Halloran and Brok Liu combined to drive in seven runs in the game while sophomore JT Rattigan and senior Bennett Speicher were serviceable on the mound. With the win, the Eagles move to 24-12 on the season and back into a tie for second place in the UAA championship race with Chicago (23-11, 10-6). Both programs will head into the final conference series weekend trailing Case Western Reserve (22-11-1, 11-4-1) by 1.5 games in the standings.
The offense lit up the Maroons to start the morning as the Eagles sent 20 batters to the plate over their first two innings, recording 11 hits and scoring 10 times to lead 10-1 at the end of two frames.
Halloran collected a two-run double in Emory's four-run first inning as he continued his big weekend at the plate. Halloran tallied six RBI over his four games with Chicago and will head into the final series of the regular season with 166 career RBI as he looks to eclipse Ted Karniewicz's 25-year old program record of 169.
In the second inning, the Eagles racked up seven singles and one HBP to add on an additional six runs to their ledger. Sicoli opened the scoring with a two-run single up the middle and was followed by RBI hits from junior Adrien Armstrong, Liu and sophomores Zach Hanson and Jake Lawson.
Rattigan cruised through his first four innings on the mound as the Eagles staked him to a nine-run lead. It was not until the fifth when the Maroons got to the second-year hurler as Chicago notched a pair of two-out, two-run home runs to slice the Emory lead to 10-5 midway through the afternoon. Rattigan finished his outing with six full frames, allowing five runs on 12 hits. He struck out one and did not walk a batter to improve to 3-1.
Chicago continued to cut into the Emory advantage as UC registered two more runs in the seventh in Speicher's first inning of work, bringing the score to 10-7.
The Eagles added a much-needed insurance run in the eighth when Liu scored junior Zach Wasserlauf with a flair single to left.
After surrendering two runs in the seventh, Speicher faced just one over the minimum in his next two innings of work to lock down his eighth save of the campaign.
Emory will close out the regular season next weekend when WashU visits Atlanta for a series starting Friday, April 25th.
