From cruise control to the panic button, to clutch hitting and timely pitching, Lancaster Bible College's opening game at the NCCAA Division II National Championships against Ohio Christian was worth the four-hour rain delay.

The Chargers rallied from a 3-2 deficit in the top of the seventh to beat the Trailblazers, 4-3 in the opening round of Nationals. The win is the first-ever at the National Tournament for LBC. The Chargers had lost both games the other two times they were at Nationals in 2007 and 2009.

Trailing 3-2 in the seventh, senior Lou Curcio walked, which brought Frank DiFilippo to the plate. DiFilippo, 0-for-2 at the time, had not looked very good in his first three plate appearences, but hammered a curveball for a double into the left-center gap that scored Josh Butala who was running for Curcio.

"Ben Markey told me to go out there and perform and that's what I did," DiFilippo said. "Spencer Collier is always telling me to keep Jesus Christ first in my life and everything else will fall into place and today that's exactly what happened."

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Tim Landis ran for DiFilippo and was on second for a short time as Chad Hollinger came to the plate and singled through the right side, scoring Landis and giving LBC a 4-3 lead. Curcio kept the Trailblazers' bats in-check in the seventh and the Chargers were on their way.

Seven of the 21 outs Curcio recorded were courtesy of the 1-3 putout. When asked if he had ever had so many groundball putouts, Curcio said no way.

"I was jamming guys and they were out in front of my change-up," Curcio said. "Tomorrow we need to score more runs and keep feeding off of that last inning."

LBC skipper Doug Yager agreed with Curcio about how LBC should play on Thursday.

"We will take the first two innings when we played very well and the last one when we were hitting," Yager said. "We did some good things today and scored early which is what we wanted, but there are still things to improve."

Yager was pleased with how his NCCAA All-American pitcher performed once again.

"We needed a start like this from Lou, it was just great senior leadership," Yager said. "He pitched really well."

Curcio limited OCU to four hits and got 13 groundball outs, earning his seventh win of the season. Drew Tilley was the only Chargers' player with two hits, he also scored a run.

LBC will face top-ranked Atlanta Christian on Thursday. Game time is still being decided due to the long rain delays that pushed all of Wednesday's games back. Continue to follow our running diary for updates.

Notes:
-LBC is now 1-4 all-time at Nationals.

-This is the first win of the 2009-10 academic year for LBC against OCU. The Trailblazers beat the Chargers in men's and women's basketball this past season.

-DiFilippo's double was his 42nd hit of the season. He is currently third on the team in hits behind Erb (46) and Curcio (43).