BRONX, N.Y. – No. 3 Dayton recorded 12 hits, including a pair of home runs to beat second-seeded Davidson 7-3 Thursday on the second day of the 2019 Atlantic 10 Baseball Championship at Fordham’s Houlihan Park.

The Flyers (31-24-1) advance to the semifinals and will face the winner between No. 1 VCU/No. 4 Fordham Friday at noon. The Wildcats (27-21) fall into the consolation bracket and will play again Thursday at 5:00 pm against sixth-seeded Rhode Island in an elimination game.

It was the second straight A-10 championship game where both starting pitchers reached double-digit strikeouts, with Cole Pletka (4-2) recording 10 for Dayton in earning the win. Allen Barry (7-3) also had 10 for Davidson in taking the loss. Saint Louis and Rhode Island set A-10 Championship strikeout records Thursday night with a combined 33 Ks.

But the bats were the story Thursday, with four home runs and 15 singles between the two teams. Four Dayton players recorded a game-high two hits and eight different Flyers had at least one hit. Seven Wildcats also had at least one hit and two recorded a pair of hits.

Dayton opened the scoring in the third inning on a safety squeeze, thanks to a bunt laid down by Benjamin Blackwell that trickled down the third base line and allowed Eddie Pursinger to break from third and score. But Davidson tied it back up on a leadoff solo home run by Eric Jones, his second round-tripper of the Championship. To that point, Jones was the only player from any team in the A-10 Championship to have cleared the fences.

Pursinger changed that with a homer to right center in the top of the fifth, putting the Flyers back up by one. Riley Tirotta then added to the lead, crushing a  solo homer in the top of the sixth. The second home run of the inning came off the bat of Justin Lebek, who barely cleared the fence in left center field to pull the Wildcats back within one. 

Dayton kept the bats hot in the final two innings, scoring twice on an RBI single up the middle by Alex Brickman in the eighth, and a pair of RBI singles in the ninth by Bryce Hellgeth and Jay Curtis to push the lead to 7-2. Davidson added one in the bottom of the ninth when Alex Mardiney scored on a passed ball, but that was Davidson’s only run over the final three innings.