Brenna cGee/The Hoya Senior catcher Mike Lombardi winds up for a throw. He led the team in batting average wiht a .348 on the season and, in his last at bat, closed out his Georgetown career with a solo home run.

The Georgetown baseball team concluded its most successful season in 20 years on Monday by splitting a doubleheader with Villanova. The Hoyas won the first game, 10-9, in 11 innings, but fell to the Wildcats in their final game, 10-5.

Georgetown finished the season 25-30 overall, its most wins since going 27-25 in 1985. The Hoyas’ 8-17 Big East record was also their best conference finish since 1997. Georgetown currently sits in 10th place in the eleven-team conference.

The first game of the doubleheader actually started Saturday night, but heavy rain forced the suspension of the contest in the middle of the seventh inning with the score tied, 6-6. Both coaches had agreed to conclude the game Monday, and then play the scheduled doubleheader afterwards. Once the continued game went into extra innings, however, Big East regulations prevented the teams from playing a third time.

When the opening game resumed Monday morning, the Hoyas scored two runs on junior center fielder Jim Supple’s two-out single to take an 8-6 lead.

Villanova used a three-run ninth inning to move ahead, 9-8. With one out in the bottom of the ninth, sophomore third baseman Danny Gronski walked and then advanced to second on a wild pitch by Wildcats senior pitcher Adrian Schau. After junior Parker Brooks flied out, Supple came up with another two-out hit, this time a double down the line in left that scored Gronski and tied the game.

“He jumped on a hanging curve ball and did what he should have done,” Head Coach Pete Wilk said. “He didn’t try to pull it, and tied the ballgame up with two outs. That was enormous.”

Both teams stayed scoreless until the bottom of the 11th, when Gronski led off the inning with a single through the left side. Brooks laid down a bunt to sacrifice the runner to second, but Gronski headed for third after noticing that nobody was covering the base. First baseman Alan Day made an errant throw to try to catch Gronski, who came home on the error to give Georgetown the win, 10-9.

“It’s a microcosm of the whole year,” Wilk said. “We had a chance to roll over where teams in my involvement with the program in the past would have rolled over. It’s not in this team’s makeup. That’s what made this year so much fun.”

The Hoyas had plenty of hitting stars in the game. Supple went 4-for-6 at the plate with a pair of doubles, adding four RBIs and two runs. Gronski also had four hits. Senior catcher Mike Lombardi went 5-for-6 with an RBI.

Villanova took an early lead in the second game, tagging junior Eddie Pena for three runs in the first inning. The Hoyas moved within one in the bottom of the first, as Lombardi’s single up the middle scored Brooks and Supple to make it 3-2.

The Wildcats gave themselves some more breathing room in the third. After a leadoff single, Schau homered to left to extend Villanova’s lead to 5-2. Pena left the game after giving up another single, but freshman Erick Chandler allowed two more runs to score, the last of which came on a double steal.

Georgetown made it 7-3 when Gronski scored on Lombardi’s groundout to first.

Villanova added a run in the fifth, which the Hoyas got back when junior Andrew Clearly led off the bottom of the seventh with his ninth home run of the season.

The Wildcats’ lead grew to 10-4 in the eighth inning on a two-run single by junior infielder Mark Cardillo.

While Villanova had the game well in hand, the bottom of the ninth inning provided one last dramatic moment in the season. With one out, Lombardi crushed a home run to left-center in his last at bat as a Hoya.

The home run made the final score 10-5, and capped off a great weekend and career for Lombardi, who was the sole captain on the team this year. In the two games, Lombardi went 8-for-11 with five RBIs and finished the season as the team leader in batting (.348) for the second consecutive year.

“I was so happy for Mike to go out that way,” Wilk said. “It was special.”

Georgetown will also lose outfielder Ron Cano and pitchers Tom O’Connor and Kevin Field. Cano recorded a single in his final at bat, and O’Connor struck out his last batter in a scoreless ninth inning. Wilk said that he had planned to pitch Field, but that losing the third game prevented him from doing so.

“To me, it was real special to see Mikey, Ronny, and Tommy go out that way,” Wilk said. “I’m disappointed we didn’t give Kevin a chance. That’s a special class because it’s my first class as a head coach. To have them go out with the excitement and the buzz this year was really special for me, and to see them reap the rewards for a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Those four deserve it and I’m happiest for all of them.”