FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Fairfield University Baseball senior infielder Jack Gethings went 7-for-9, raising his conference best average to .417 during Friday's doubleheader as the Stags split the twin bill with Monmouth taking the opener 6-2 while dropping the finale 7-4. The series opening win put Fairfied's winning streak to eight games before dropping the seven-inning nightcap.
 
Game One: Fairfield 6, Monmouth 2
 
The Stags scored four times in the first three innings with Tom Ryan plating a pair of those runs to take a 4-1 lead.
 
Gethings, who would go a perfect 5-for-5 in the opener, would have two of those base knocks during that stretch starting with a double in the first. Anthony Boselli brought in the first run with a sacrifice fly in the first.
 
Tom Ryan would double home a run in the second and tallied another RBI with a sacrifice fly in the third. The Stags scored their fourth run in the game when Boselli forced a rundown between first and second, allowing Gethings to sprint home from third ahead of the tag.
 
The Stags would open some more breathing room as Tom Ryan brought home his third run of the game with a fielder's choice in the seventh. Fairfield capped their scoring with a sacrifice fly from Justin Guerrera in the eighth, plating Tim Zeng who tripled in the prior at-bat.
 
That would be all that the Fairfield pitching staff would need to lock down Fairfield's eighth-straight win as Austin Pope and Eli Oliphant combined to shut down the Hawks.
 
Pope was strong during his seven innings of work, earning his second win of the season. The junior allowed just one earned run coming in the first inning and an unearned run in the fifth on a dropped fly ball with two outs.
 
The right hander struck out five and walked just two during his seven innings while allowing only three hits, and none after the third frame.
 
Oliphant faced just one batter over the minimum in the final two innings of the game, securing a 6-2 victory.
 
Along with Gethings' 5-for-5 performance, two other Stags picked up multiple hits with Zeng and Boselli both picking up a pair.
 
Game Two, Monmouth 7, Fairfield 4
 
Monmouth scored the first seven runs of the finale, forcing the Stags to mount a rally in order to keep their winning streak alive.
 
The Stags almost mounted that comeback as they tallied four runs in the fifth as the first six Stags reached base. Tom Ryan and Nick Weyant started the frame with back-to-back singles and Griffin Watson followed with a four-pitch walk to load the bases.
 
Zeng would be hit by the first pitch he saw in the at-bat to force home a run and plate the first for Fairfield, making the score 7-1.
 
Justin Guerrera would follow with a two-run single but was thrown out at second trying to stretch the hit into a double. Gethings would follow with a double to plate Zeng and make the score 7-4 with one out. Monmouth's Ryan Lillie would settle down and force back-to-back fly outs to end the jam.
 
Peter Horn kept the Stags within striking distance as he tossed 3.2 innings in relief surrendering a lone run in the fifth.
 
Gethings joined Guerrera as the two Stags with multiple hits in the nightcap totaling seven in the doubleheader. The only two outs that Gethings recorded was a line drive out near the right field wall in the middle innings and a sharp line drive to the first baseman to end the game.
 
Gethings has now recorded 246 career hits, 17 shy of tying the program's all-time record.
 
The two teams will conclude the series with a rubber match on Saturday at 2pm, due to the forecasted weather.