JENKINTOWN, Pa. – Down by five runs, the Penn State Abington baseball team rallied to a 9-5 victory over Gwynedd Mercy on Friday afternoon.

Abington improves to 12-17 in its final home non-conference game of the season.

Junior pitcher Greg Mugnier (Abington, Pa.) earned his first win of the season with seven strikeouts in four innings of work.

The Griffins opened the first inning with four runs and added another in the second inning off a double to right center field.

The Nittany Lions answered with a sacrifice fly from Austin Mikula (Philadelphia, Pa.) to cut the lead to 5-1, in the bottom of the second inning.

In the fourth inning, Pat Fitzgerald (Warrington, Pa.) kicked off a four runs swing for the Nittany Lions with a single to left field that allowed two runs to cross the plate.  Later in the inning Max Perilstein (Cheltenham, Pa.) drove Fitzgerald in by knocking a ball down the left field line. Perilstein would tie the game when he took home off a wild pitch.

Mugnier stepped in with bases loaded and no outs in the sixth inning, and held the Griffins scoreless with two consecutive strikeouts and ground out to the second baseman.

The Nittany Lions broke the stalemate in the eighth inning when Matt Meyers (Cheltenham, Pa.) took the pitch to center field for a double that scored the go-ahead runs.

Abington will travel to New York to face Keuka College tomorrow afternoon with first pitch slated for a 1:00 p.m. start.