BALTIMORE, Maryland (March 2, 2019) – The Rutgers University-Camden baseball program never shies away from playing many of the top teams in the country, and the Scarlet Raptors faced two of them as they opened their season here Saturday at the Baltimore Invitational, hosted by Johns Hopkins University.
 
Facing Cortland State, ranked No. 10 nationally in this week's D3baseball.com Top 25 poll, the Raptors watched the Dragons pull out a 4-3 victory, aided by three runs in the top of the eighth inning.
 
Later in the day, Rutgers-Camden dropped a 7-3 decision against host Johns Hopkins, which received eight votes toward the latest D3baseball.com Top 25 poll.
 
Rutgers-Camden also was supposed to play No. 19-ranked La Roche College during the weekend, but the tournament schedule and participants were altered due to the weather.
 
Cortland State improves to 3-2-1, while Johns Hopkins is 3-1.
 
The Scarlet Raptors, 0-2, will resume their season Thursday with a 2:30 p.m. game at Immaculata University.
   
After being shut down for seven innings by Raptor senior ace Ian Scheidemann, the Dragons, scored three runs in the top of the eighth inning against the Rutgers-Camden bullpen to pull out the win. That rally came moments after the Raptors took a 3-1 lead with a three-run bottom of the seventh inning.
 
Scheidemann was brilliant in his season-opening start, allowing just two hits and one earned run in his seven innings of work. He walked two and struck out six, but had no decision against Cortland for the second straight year in the season opener, despite leaving with a lead. In the 2018 opener, he worked six innings and pitched the Raptors to a 2-1 lead before the Dragons, ranked No. 1 nationally at the time, came back for a 5-2 win.
 
The only run Scheidemann allowed came after Cortland centerfielder Scott Giordano opened the game with a triple. He later scored on a sacrifice fly by third baseman Danny Coleman.
 
Rutgers-Camden, which was blanked for five innings by Cortland starter Nick Morena, scored three times in the seventh off the Dragons' bullpen. With one out, sophomore rightfielder Billy Eisler was hit by a pitch. He scored the tying run on a double down the right field line by junior second baseman John Guccione. Guccione was retired at third on an attempted sacrifice bunt by freshman centerfielder Brett Yurgin, but Yurgin followed with a stolen base. Sophomore catcher R.J. Concepcion put the Raptors ahead with a two-run home run to right-center field.
 
The lead didn't last long. In the top of the eighth, Cortland sandwiched a walk between two strikeouts before Mat Bruno collected a pinch-hit RBI double. Second baseman Marcos Perivolaris singled home the tying run and advanced to second on the throw to the plate. He scored the eventual winning run on a single by catcher James Varian.
 
Cortland collected only five hits off a trio of Raptor pitchers, with nobody getting more than one. Rutgers-Camden had 10 hits, led by Concepcion (3-for-4) and Yurgin (2-for-5).
   
The Blue Jays scored single runs in the second and third innings on solo home runs before the Scarlet Raptors bounced back to take their only lead of the game, scoring three times in the top of the fourth inning. With one out, junior designated hitter Matthew Stoots was hit by a pitch and advanced to second on a single by junior first baseman Matt Yanick. Senior third baseman Chris Jones followed with a three-run home run to left field.
 
Johns Hopkins bounced right back with three runs in the bottom of the fourth, aided by a two-run double from centerfielder Chris Festa. He scored an unearned run on an infield throwing error.
 
Hopkins tacked on single runs in the sixth and eighth innings on a balk and a RBI ground out by Festa, who collected three RBIs on the day. Shortstop Mike Eberle accounted for half of the Blue Jays' six hits, going 3-for-4 with one RBI and two runs scored.
 
Rutgers-Camden managed five hits against a pair of Hopkins hurlers, with nobody getting more than one. Jones accounted for all three Raptor runs with his home run. That hit, his only one of the day, allowed him to tie for sixth place on the program's career list with 166 hits. It also made him the fourth player in program history to reach 100 career RBIs and moved his career total bases to 226, lifting him into sixth place on Rutgers-Camden's all-time list.