SELINSGROVE, Pa. – The Drew University baseball team erased an early 5-0 deficit, but Susquehanna University rallied to win 8-7 in 11 innings in the play-in game of the Landmark Conference Championships on Tuesday.
 
The fifth-seeded Rangers (22-18), who were making their first Landmark Conference playoff appearance in a non-Covid season since 2017, trailed by five after two innings of play. But Drew scored two runs in the third and three in the fifth on a bases-clearing double from junior Ryan Jones.
 
The Rangers went in front on a two-run homer from senior Nate Miller in the top of the sixth, making it a 7-5 game. But the fourth-seeded River Hawks scored the game's final three runs to advance to the double-elimination portion of the tournament this weekend at the University of Scranton.
 
It was the second game in a row between the two teams that went to 11 innings, as Susquehanna won a 5-4 decision in the regular-season finale between the two sides back on April 21.
 
Senior Anthony Diaz Jr. led Drew at the plate, going 3-for-5 with a double and two runs scored while junior Raiden Yost finished 2-for-5.
 
Susquehanna scored once in the first and four in the second to assume their 5-0 lead. But in the third, Diaz got things started with a leadoff single before senior Anthony Hernandez doubled. Miller put the Rangers on the scoreboard with a sacrifice fly before Yost made it 5-2 with an RBI-double.
 
In the fifth, Miller and Yost sandwiched walks around a single from freshman Aiden Mitchell to load the bases before Jones delivered his big blast into the left-center gap, pulling the Rangers even at 5-5. Then in the sixth, Diaz walked before Miller launched his homer, giving him a team-high eight long balls on the season - a mark that tied the school record set by Brian Gable C'99 in 1997 - while handing Drew a 7-5 lead.
 
 Susquehanna answered with one run on four hits in the bottom half to make it a 7-6 game, then added one in the seventh to tie things up.
 
The Rangers threatened to go in front in both the eighth and ninth innings. Diaz doubled with two outs in the eighth before the River Hawks escaped with a flyout. Then in the ninth, Drew put runners on first and second on a hit by pitch and a walk but Susquehanna got out of it with a strikeout.
 
In the bottom of the 11th, Susquehanna's Michael Mancuso led off with a single before moving up to second on a wild pitch. But with one out, Michael Biuso singled up the middle to score Mancuso with the game-winning run.
 
The Rangers used four different pitchers on the day. Junior Matt Colucci started and worked two innings, yielding the first five runs, before sophomore Brandon Kobryn came on to throw 4 2/3 frames, giving up two runs on seven hits while striking out three. Junior Connor Ruscansky then blanked the River Hawks over three stellar innings from the eighth through the 10th, when the only batter to reach base against him came via an intentional walk. But he was relieved by Yost came after giving up the single to Mancuso in the 11th

For the season, the Rangers won seven more games than in 2023 and saw their conference record improve by 11 victories, finishing 13-11.