Rowan staves off elimination with 8-3 win over Salisbury in Division III baseball championship

Second-seeded Rowan extended its season with an 8-3 win over No. 3 seed Salisbury in an NCAA Division III baseball championship elimination game at Classic Auto Group Park on Saturday in Eastlake, Ohio.

Rowan will play another elimination game on Sunday (3 p.m., ncaa.com). It will face seventh-seeded Adrian after it lost, 12-2, to Endicott late Saturday night.

The Profs lost their opening game to Adrian on Friday night.

“We were calmer today,” Rowan coach Mike Dickson said. “We’ve still got a ways to go. Tomorrow’s a new day. We’ve got to keep on building off of this win.”

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The Profs (38-6) scored five runs in the fifth inning to put the game out of reach after taking a 2-0 lead over Salisbury in the first.

“We wanted to try and get on the board early and create a little pressure,” Dickson said. “I thought we played a little bit more relaxed.”

Salisbury responded with a run in the top of the third, but Brayden Davis countered with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the inning.

Davis’ third-inning homer was his 16th of the season and his 86th RBI, extending his program lead on the single-season RBI record.

Nick Struble, who went 3-for-4 with two RBIs, started the scoring in the fifth with a bases-loaded RBI single.

Ian Murphy scored on a wild pitch, and Brett Chiesa came home on an errant throw to the plate before Mason Dorsey capped the outburst with a two-run double that gave Rowan an 8-1 lead.

Austin Kreyenhagen struck out eight in a six-inning start for the Profs, allowing one run and four hits.

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“I had my good stuff, but not my ace stuff,” Kreyenhagen said. “But I still battled, and everything felt pretty good.”