The St. John Fisher College baseball team fell 5-3 to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in its first game in the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational in Winter Haven, FL. With the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth, returning Empire 8 Conference Player of the Year Steve Karnyski dug in for a long at-bat, eventually grounding out. The loss is the Cardinals first of the season, dropping their record to 2-1 thus far.

Fisher never led in the game, giving up a run in the first inning after a questionable foul call led to the Rose-Hulman lead-off man getting on base.

Peter Krysztof lead-off the third inning for Fisher with a double down the leftfield line before scoring on a Chris Roeder single to centerfield.

Rose-Hulman Followed that with three runs in the top of the fourth, including what would prove to be the winning run on an unearned sacrifice fly RBI.

The Cardinals added a run in the fifth inning when Brad Rush earned an RBI on a sacrifice fly to drive in Roeder. Fisher added another when Ryan Shaughnessy opened the sixth inning with a double. Alex Stacy pinch ran for Shaughnessy and scored from third when Krysztof singled through the left side.

Zach Weaver got the loss after going 3.1 innings, allowing five hits,  four runs, only two of which were earned, and fanning four batters. The game was round out by Adam Pettinella, Tom Dybas, Ryan Trauger and Tim Sylvester. Dybas went three solid innings for the Cardinals, giving up just two hits and one run which was also unearned. Sylverster closed the game out strong, going 1.2 innings and allowing no hits, runs or walks.

Ben Bostick, Matt Klock and Krysztof each finished with two hits to lead Fisher, with Krysztof, Rush and Roesder all finishing with an RBI.

Fisher will return to action tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. against Penn State-Altoona.