COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Franklin & Marshall baseball team (18-11, 5-2 CC) picked up its fifth Centennial Conference (CC) win Tuesday afternoon as the Diplomats held off Ursinus (11-18, 3-4 CC), 10-7, in game one of its home-and-home series.

Tied 1-1 in the top of the second, Conner Rush singled through the left side of the infield to set up Andrew Filippelli to rope a double to left center – scoring Rush and giving F&M a 2-1 lead.

After a sacrifice fly from Drew Butera in the top of the fifth pushed the Diplomats' lead to 3-1, F&M went right back to work on offense in the top of the sixth. Back-to-back walks to Patrick Cettina and Evan Varga, followed by a single from AJ Desautels loaded the bases with one out. Consecutive walks to Bobby Falese and Jakob Hoffman scored two to extend the F&M lead to 5-1. A wild pitch and an error on the infield scored two more for the visitors to push the score to 7-1.

Ursinus chipped away at the F&M lead as it narrowed the deficit to 8-4 entering the ninth inning. In the top of the final frame, Filippelli ripped a two-out double into the right center field gap to keep the inning alive. On the next at-bat, Desautels smacked his third home run of the season over the left field fence to push the lead to 10-4.

The Bears scored three runs in the bottom of the frame, but Grant Burgess extinguished the threat to record his second save of the season.

Desautels, Tommy Denlinger, and Filippelli tallied two hits each in the game. Desautels and Filippelli also recorded two RBI each in the win.

Bijan Anvar (3-1) claimed his third win on the mound – striking out three and allowing just one earned run in a career-high six innings.

Franklin & Marshall looks to complete the series sweep over the Bears when the teams meet again at Caplan Field Friday at 3:30 p.m.