By Jim Fenton

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. -- The Bridgewater State University baseball team opened the NCAA Division 3 tournament by losing on a walk-off home run.

Brendan Henn (Matamoras, Pa.) broke a 3-3 tie with a two-out, two-run homer to center field in the bottom of the ninth inning, lifting host Penn State Harrisburg past the Bears, 5-3, on Friday.

BSU, which held a 3-0 lead earlier in the game, falls into the loser's bracket of the four-team double-elimination regional.

The fourth-seeded Bears (26-15) will try to keep their season alive on Saturday at noon against Elizabethtown College of Pennsylvania. Elizabethtown dropped a 4-0 decision to Randolph-Macon College of Ashland, Va. on Friday afternoon in opening round play.

Henn's homer, his sixth of the season and the 38th hit by Harrisburg this year, completed a comeback for the Lions (35-9), ranked 14th in the American Baseball Coaches Association national poll).

After getting two outs to start the ninth inning, reliever Michael Cobb (Waltham, Mass.) walked Braeden Piotrowski (Gambrills, Md.).

Following a pitching change, Henn hit a 1-0 pitch over the fence in center field to end the opening game of the regional.

Penn State Harrisburg, which set a program record for victories with the win, plays at noon on Saturday against either Randolph-Macon or Elizabethtown. The Lions are now 18-2 at home.

There will also be an elimination game on Saturday at 3:30 with the championship to be determined on Sunday.

BSU, which had a five-game winning streak stopped, had eight hits but only one after the fourth inning.

DJ Prampin (Worcester, Mass.), Kevin Lindsay (East Bridgewater, Mass.) and Ryan Flaherty (Duxbury, Mass.) each went 2-for-4 with Prampin driving in two of the three runs.

Penn State Harrisburg, making its fifth straight trip to the NCAAs, was led by Coy Schwanger (Ephrata, Pa.) with three hits and Henn with two hits.

The Bears, in the NCAAs for the third year in a row, opened a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning when Lindsay singled up the middle, went to second on a wild pitch and scored on Flaherty's single up the middle.

The margin went to 2-0 in the second as Prampin hit a two-out homer to center, his fourth of the season.

BSU made it 3-0 against starter Danny Eden (Morgantown, Pa.) in the fourth inning as Jay Wladkowski (Norwood, Mass.) and Mathew Pigeon (Canton, Mass.) both singled up the middle and Prampin had an RBI single to right.

The Bears had runners at first and third with one out, but Prampin was caught stealing and Eden retired the next batter to get out of the jam.

Following that inning, BSU's lone base runner was Flaherty, who led the sixth inning with a single to right field, but he was erased when the next batter hit into a double play.

Eden retired the side in order in the fifth, and winning pitcher Josh Berzonski (Glenville, Pa.) set down all nine batters he faced in the final three innings, striking out two, for the win to improve to 6-1. Berzonski also lowered his earned run average to 1.16 which ranks second in all of Division III.

Starter Trey Yesu (Monson, Mass.) held the Lions scoreless through five innings before they tied the game in the sixth. He had three strikeouts and two walks while allowing seven hits in six innings.

With one out in the sixth, Kevin Lehner (Tyrone, Pa.) walked and Schwanger singled up the middle.

Lehner scored on a double to right by Blaine Waltimyer (Pottstown, Pa.) and a single up the middle by Tim Haftl (Oxford, Pa.) made it 3-2.

A groundout by pinch hitter Demetre Koutras III (Clarksville, Md.) evened the game.

CJ Hess (Providence, R.I.) relieved Yesu to start the seventh and did not allow a hit in 1 2-3 innings. Cobb (2-3) pitched one inning and retired three of the four batters he faced giving up just the one walk. The walk, however, proved to be the winning run.

BSU made the NCAAs as an automatic qualifier after winning its third straight Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament.

Penn State Harrisburg received an at-large bid after losing in the final round of the United East Conference.

Notes: It is the second time in three years that the Bears have dropped their opening game of the regional tournament in walk-off fashion. In 2022, the Bears fell to SUNY Cortland, 4-3 in ten innings, at the Cortland Regional....Lindsay played in his 159th career game in a BSU uniform. He is one shy of John Garabedian's (2010-13) school record of 160.

-- Coach Zackrison/DJ Prampin Postgame Interviews --