May 17, 2013 2 min read

Josh Staniscia doubled in one run and scored another in the 13th inning Friday to give No. 5 Washington & Jefferson College’s baseball team a thrilling 8-7 victory over No. 3 Wooster in an elimination game of the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional in Terre Haute, Ind.

W&J went on to play in another elimination game Friday night against No. 6 Thomas More. The game did not end in time for this edition.

W&J (32-12) and Wooster went to extra innings tied, 6-6, and it remained that same way until the top of the 13th inning, when Staniscia doubled home first baseman D.J. Michalski, a graduate of Canon-McMillan High School, with one out. Staniscia then provided the Presidents with an insurance run by scoring on junior catcher Ronny Peirish’s ground out to first.

Wooster (33-12), the North Coast Athletic Conference champion, struck for a run in the bottom of the 13th and brought the potential game-winning run to the plate. But junior right hander Marc Rizzo struck out Brendan Taylor to end the game. Rizzo earned his first victory of the spring as he pitched the final three innings, allowing one earned run on two hits, while striking out two.

“We fought and scrapped all day. Wooster is a good team and they kept battling us,” said W&J coach Jeff Mountain. “We capitalized on a mistake in the eighth inning which is something that good teams do.”

Wooster had three hits in the ninth but couldn’t score thanks to Derek McIlvaine, a Chartiers-Houston graduate, throwing out a runner at the plate from left field for the third out.

Scott Liller had a bases-loaded double that tied the game, 5-5, in the eighth. Michalski followed with a single to score Liller, who was 3-for-6 with four RBI, to make it 6-5.

Wooster tied it in the bottom of the eighth with an RBI single by Eddie Reese, who went 4-for-6 and drove in two runs.