Box Score 1 | Box Score 2
AUBURNDALE, Fla. -- Two teams from the Lake Erie region met at Lake Myrtle Park on Thursday, with Notre Dame and Gannon (Pa.) doing battle in Central Florida. NDC and GU split the doubleheader, with the Falcons winning the nightcap, 9-1, after falling, 7-6, in game one.

Notre Dame (7-10) got solid starting pitching from two hurlers -- Jay Sperry and Kevin Bedhun -- making their first starts of the 2013 season. The NDC offense banged out 24 hits against Gannon (4-4).

Game One
Sophomore right-hander Jay Sperry drew the start for NDC in the opener. Sperry yielded a single, a double, and a walk in the first inning, and shortstop Jared Clovis committed an error that extended what was to become a three-run inning.

Clovis would be responsible for the first Falcon run; he homered off Gannon starter Aaron Cox in the top of the third. That hit -- Clovis' second home run of the season -- seemed to ignite a Falcon offense that was held to three runs in being swept by No. 4 (d2baseball.com) Grand Valley State (Mich.) on Tuesday. The Falcons tied the game at 3-3 with a pair of runs in the fourth.

The Golden Knights plated a solo run in the bottom of the fourth, and NDC answered with one run in the top of the fifth, so when the Knights came to bat in the bottom of the fifth the score was knotted at 4-4. Gannon worked three hits and a walk into three runs in that half-inning, taking a 7-4 lead.

Notre Dame made things interesting in the visitors' half of the seventh, when Kevin Bernay and Jesse Bartle had back-to-back two-out RBI hits. Those hits -- a pinch-hit double by Bernay and a single by Bartle -- brought the Falcons within one (7-6). Bartle then advanced into scoring position on a wild pitch, but he was stranded there when Shayne Herold struck out Shane DeFranco to end the game.

Jay Sperry went 3-2/3 innings, yielding four runs (one earned) in the contest. Sperry walked two and struck out three. Taylor Neville (1-1/3 innings, three runs) and Dan Poskocil (scoreless inning) comprised the bullpen contribution in the game.

Aaron Cox went 6-2/3 innings. He struck out nine while walking three.

Bartle's hit in the seventh was his third of the game; he went 3-for-3 with two RBIs.

The loss marked NDC's first this season when scoring four or more runs.

Game Two
Senior right-hander Kevin Bedhun made his first career start in the nightcap and was staked to a 3-0 lead when the Falcons sent eight men to the plate in the first. Bryan Blondeaux and Jesse Bartle walked in the inning and Kevin Bernay was hit by a pitch. They all circuited the bags and scored before Bedhun took to the pitching rubber in the top of the second.

Bedhun's lead ballooned to 7-0 in the third when Notre Dame got big two-run hits off the bats of Pat Ross and Bryan Blondeaux. Both Ross and Blondeaux would reach three times in the second game. Bedhun followed that four-run outburst with a key one-two-three top of the fourth. In that frame, the Geneva, Ohio, product struck out the No. 4 and 5 batters in Gannon's lineup.

NDC added two runs in the fifth, another inning keyed by Ross and Blondeaux. Both singled and scored in running the Falcon advantage to 9-0.

A two-out, run-scoring double by designated hitter Aaron Cox got Gannon on the board in the top of the sixth. But that's the only time the Golden Knights managed to dent the plate in six innings pitched by Bedhun (six hits allowed, one walk, three strikeouts) and one by Eric Napoli (two strikeouts).

The duo of Bedhun and Napoli was buoyed by the performance of an NDC offense that got its leadoff man aboard in 5-of-6 innings and went 8-of-18 with runners in scoring position. The Falcons banged out 16 hits in the game. Shane DeFranco (3-for-4) was the leading hitter for a squad that had six multi-hit performances in the game.  Jesse Bartle was one of those multi-hit performers, going 2-for-3. For the afternoon, the senior right fielder went 5-for-6 with two walks. Notre Dame had a .485 on-base percentage over the two games.