By BRYAN GRISHAM

CSCC Sports Information Director

The Cleveland State baseball team needed not one, but two, last inning walk-off hits on Saturday afternoon at Cougar Field as they posted a pair of dramatic come-from-behind wins over Roane State to complete a weekend sweep of the Raiders. The Cougars (34-14, 17-7) needed extra innings and a walk-off homer from Troy Zawadzki to win game one, 3-2 and then a crunch time game-winning single by John Cervantes in the second game to pull out a 2-1 win. The Cougars flexed their muscles on Friday in game one of the three-game set whitewashing their guests, 15-2.

Matt Brewer singled and later scored on an error in the bottom of the second inning to give the Cougars a 1-0 lead in the second game of the day on Saturday.

Pitching dominated game two on both sides as Cleveland State's Travis Tingle and the Raiders Jeremy Hamm each took turns putting zeros on the board for most of the game.

A pair of Cougar miscues and an RBI single from Josh King tied the game for the Raiders in the top of the seventh at 1-1.

Justin Ridenour led off the bottom of the seventh with a pinch hit frozen rope single to start the rally. Lance Rorex moved Ridenour to second with a nice sacrifice bunt. Cervantes then took an outside fastball to right field for a single. Ridenour raced home and somehow avoided the catcher's tag to slide in safely with the game winner.

"Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good," Cougar coach Mike Policastro said with a smile. "We didn't hit it much today and we were fortunate to get a pair of wins. We really hit it yesterday (Friday), but today we just couldn't come up with the big hit. Our pitching kept us in it all day long."

Ridenour and Cervantes led the way as six different Cougars picked up a hit apiece in game two. Tingle started and tossed six strong innings allowing no earned runs, only two hits and fanning eight Raiders along the way while Chris Anselmo pitched the seventh inning relief to pick up the win. Hamm tossed all seven innings and was the hard-luck losing pitcher for Roane State.

The Cougar's Ben Booker and the Raider's Zach Rushing locked horns in a good old fashioned pitchers duel in the first game on Saturday as runs and hits were hard to come by on both sides.

The Cougars jumped on top in the with a single run in the bottom of the first after a walk and an error led to an RBI single by Cody Hooper.

The Raiders took the lead in the top of the fourth on back to back two-out RBI singles from Josh King and Brian Fogarty for a 2-1 advantage.

The Cougars managed to scratch out a run to tie the game in the bottom of the fifth as Hooper came up with his second run scoring single to knot the game at 2-2.

Chad Fromm (5-0) took over for Booker to start the seventh inning and continued to hang eggs on the scoreboard as extra innings were required to determine a winner.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Troy Zawadzki put an end to the first game with a dramatic walk-off two-out solo home run that sailed deep into the trees behind the left field fence to give the Cougars a 3-2 win.

Fromm tossed three scoreless innings in relief to get the win while Rushing was the tough luck losing pitcher for the Raiders. Zawadzki and Hooper led the Cougars with two hits each while King had two of the Raiders seven hits.

'We had great pitching all weekend long," stated Policastro. "Jay Bolen did a good job on Friday, Ben Booker did a great job did a great job in the first game today (Saturday) and then Chad (Fromm) came on and worked his way out of a couple of jams to finish the game. Then Travis Tingle did a great job in game two. Our pitching was the difference in this series. Their (Roane State) pitchers did a good job as well, but fortunately we were able to find a way to win and get the sweep."

On Friday, the Cougars pounded the Raiders into submission with a 14 hit attack as they put 14 runs on the board in the fourth and fifth innings.

Cody Hooper knocked in the first run of the game in the bottom of the first inning with a triple for a 1-0 Cougar lead.

The game remained right there until the fourth as the Cougars cranked up their offensive machine to turn a one-run lead into a blowout win in a matter of minutes. Lance Rorex got things started with a two-run double while Chris Anselmo followed with an RBI single. Andrew Root broke the game wide open a few batters later as he crushed a grand slam home run while Matt Brewer capped off the eight run outburst with another RBI single to push the Cleveland State lead to 9-0.

Bryant Allen got the Raiders on the board in the fifth with a two-run homer, but the Cougars responded in the bottom of the frame with six more runs to finish the game. Root and Hilton picked up an RBI each with a groundout and a Raider miscue respectively while Hooper chipped in with a two-run dinger and Brewer put the exclamation point on the game with his fourth hit of the afternoon, an RBI triple to seal the win.

Brewer led the way for the Cougars on Friday by going 4-4 at the plate while Rorex, Anselmo and Hooper all had two hits each. Jay Bolen picked up his seventh win of the season as he went six strong innings, striking out six and allowing five hits and two runs along the way. Nick Caldwell took the loss on the hill for the Raiders.

It was sophomore day on Saturday as Ben Booker, Phil Mariani, Jay Bolen, Chad Fromm, Drew Housewright, Matt Beard, Stephen Pryor, Drew Banks, Matt Brewer, Sam Waltermyer, Cory Stooksbury, Justin Ridenour, Chris Anselmo, Cory Hilton, Jay Huffman, Andrew Root, and Brett Blevins all received a plaque for their contributions to the baseball program in a pre-game ceremony.

The Cougars will play their last regular season home game on Tuesday as they host Gordon College at 2:00 and then travel to Chattanooga State next weekend for the final regular season conference games.