The Lancaster Bible baseball team lost its third straight game on Wednesday as the Chargers fell to Eastern, 12-9 at Charger Field. Lancaster Bible is now 8-9 after the loss, while Eastern improved to 8-9-2 this season with the victory.

How it Happened: Eastern jumped on the Chargers and put a two on the scoreboard just two batters into the game as Timmy Gorton hit a two-run home run over the right field wall to give the Eagles an early lead. Lancaster Bible cut its deficit in half in the bottom half of the inning as Justin Taylor hit a sacrifice fly to center that scored freshman Jensen King who had walked to lead off the inning.

Lancaster Bible took its first and only lead of the game in the third inning as Braden Elliot laid down a beautiful sacrifice bunt that scored Josh Mayer to knot the game at 2-2 and Taylor hit another sacrifice fly to center that scored King once again and the Chargers led, 3-2. Eastern tied the game in its half of the fourth as Shane Albertson singled home Andrew Boykin and made it a 3-3 game. 

Eastern exploded for four runs in the fifth inning as they capitalized on Lancaster Bible's pitching struggles as the Chargers had trouble finding the zone and the Eagles scored on three bases loaded walks. Trailing, 7-3 in the sixth inning, Lancaster Bible put three runs across the plate as Taylor hit a two-run double to cut the deficit in half and Erich Carroll followed with an RBI single to make it a 7-6 contest.

The Eagles responded with four runs in their half of the seventh inning and opened up an 11-6 lead. Joe Grato's three-run home run was the big hit of the inning as he crushed ball over the right field wall. Lancaster Bible tried to make a game of it late as the Chargers scored runs in the eighth and ninth, but could not complete the comeback and lost, 12-9.

Inside the Box Score: Taylor finished 3-for-4 with four runs batted in and two runs scored...Jensen King had an interesting stat line as he finished 0-for-2, but drew four walks and scored four runs...Adam Cohick had his second consecutive 2-for-4 game and added an RBI...Josh Mayer finished 1-for-2 with two runs scored as he drew three walks...Carroll was 3-for-5 with two runs batted in...Frank McCreary took the loss as he scattered eight hits over 4 1/3 innings and allowed four runs while striking out three...Timmy Gorton finished 3-for-6 with four runs batted in for Eastern.

Extra Bases: The teams combined to use 15 pitchers...The game took 3 hours and 40 minutes...Both teams struggled to convert base runners into runs as the Chargers left 15 batters on base, while the Eagles left 13 runners on base...Taylor now has 35 runs batted in this season and is batting .500...Taylor also extended his hitting streak to 13 games.

Up Next: Lancaster Bible will open North Eastern Athletic Conference play on Saturday as the Chargers travel to Abington, Pa. for a doubleheader with Penn St. Abington...First pitch of game one is scheduled for 1 p.m.