Houghton, NY – The D'Youville baseball team hosted the Penn State-Altoona Lions on Saturday afternoon at Houghton College, losing game one to the Lions 13-1 and game two 22-7.

Altoona scored six in the second and two in the third to jump out ahead of the Spartans 8-0. In the bottom of the second, D'Youville scored their only run of the game.

Khaled Numan-Ali (Cheektowaga, NY/Cheektowaga) singled to begin the inning, advancing to third in the next two at-bats. Justin Varney (Henrietta, NY/Rush-Henrietta) would then hit a fly ball to center field, scoring Numan-Ali to make the score 8-1.

Through the final four innings, the Lions would add five more runs on their way to a 13-1 game one victory.

Varney, Renato Quinones (Lockport, NY/Saint Joe's), Connor Truitt (Rochester, NY/Early College), and Devon Kelly (Rochester, NY/Olympia) tallied a hit each in the game as Numan-Ali led the way with two hits. Brendan Burke (Collegeville, PA/Spring-Ford) got the start on the mound, pitching three innings. Shane Critelli (Camden, NY/Camden) pitched three innings, allowing two earned runs and striking out three. Truitt came in for an inning of relief.

Game two started off slow for both teams with the Lions scoring the lone run through the first two innings with a run in the top of the first. Altoona then broke out to score 11 runs in innings three-five to go ahead 12-0.

Critelli began the bottom of the fifth by getting hit by a pitch, advancing to second on a Truitt single. Burke then doubled home Critelli and a Nick Jank (Orchard Park, NY/Canisius) sac-fly in the next at-bat would bring in Truitt from third for the Spartan's first two runs.

In the sixth, D'Youville responded to Altoona's three runs with three of their own. Dylan Haak (Depew, NY/Depew) began the inning by reaching on an error. Varney then singled to move Haak to second and he would then go on to score with a Quinones single to center. Varney would then score on a Critelli groundout in the next at-bat and Quinones would score in the following at-bat on an error.

Heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Lions would add on seven more runs to their lead. Alex Liem (Dorchester, Ont./Dorchester Secondary) led off with a walk, followed by Truitt reaching after getting hit by a pitch. Both would move up a base on a wild pitch with Burke bringing Liem home on a groundout to second. Jank would also groundout to second, but that would be enough to score Truitt to bring the game to the final score of 22-7.

Matt Guenther (Cheektowaga, NY/Maryvale), Quinones, Truitt, Varney, and Burke all registering hits. Burke and Jank tallied two RBI each in the game with Truitt scoring two runs.

Bryce Little (Arcade, NY/Pioneer) got the start, going one inning. Derek Mosher (Henrietta, NY/Rush-Henrietta) pitched 5.0 innings of relief with Jank pitching 3.0.

The Spartans will next face Keuka this Tuesday, April 16 on the road with game one of the doubleheader set to start at 1:00pm.