Brandywine Tops Mont Alto On Opening Day; Gallo Reaches Wins Mark

ASTON, Pa. -- Penn State Brandywine scored the final six runs of the game and bested Penn State Mont Alto 6-1 during its 2024 baseball season opener, making Head Coach Vinny Gallo the program's all-time wins leader on Sunday afternoon.

The Lions spotted Mont Alto a second-inning run, but scored single markers in the fourth and seventh innings before adding four insurance tallies in the eighth to give Gallo the 118th victory of his career. Gallo broke a tie with former Head Coach Jeff Vickers, who won 117 games from 2000-09.

Jaylen Bryant (Brooklyn, N.Y./High School of Telecommunications) and Connor Thompson (Finksburg, Md./Westminster) combined to limit Mont Alto to one run on six hits over nine innings on the mound. Bryant worked the first five frames, striking out three, while yielding one run on three hits. Thompson earned the win in relief by tossing four scoreless frames and fanning four.

Brandywine struck for the game-tying run with two outs in the fourth as Ryan Snyder (Aston, Pa./Sun Valley) singled in Ryan Brown (Bensalem, Pa./Bensalem), who had doubled one batter earlier.

Three frames later, Brandywine plated another two-out run to take the lead. After back-to-back walks to Toby Skeans (Stevensville, Md./Kent Island) and Evan Abegg (Commerce City, Colo./Prairie View), Mike DeGirolamo (Frederick, Md./Frederick) delivered the go-ahead base hit through the left side of the infield, scoring Skeans.

Brandywine busted the game open by scoring four times during the eighth inning as Snyder got the scoring started with an RBI triple. Two batters later, Sndyer came around to score on Owen Lawton's (Glenmoore, Pa./Downingtown East) third hit of the day, a single down the left field line. Abegg added a run-scoring base hit and Cam Baughman (Oxford, Pa./Oxford) worked a bases-loaded walk to account for the Lions' final run.

Lawton and Snyder both tallied three hits, combining for six of Brandywine's 10 knocks on the afternoon.

Brandywine (1-0) will be back at Maple Zone Monday for a 4:00 PM non-conference game against Clarks Summit.