LEWISBURG — The Bucknell baseball team swept Navy with a 6-4 win in game two of the Patriot League semifinal series on Monday afternoon at Depew Field at Marren Park to advance to the Patriot League Championship series for the first time since 2023.

With Holy Cross’s sweep over Army in the other semifinal series, the Bison will host the Crusaders for the championship series at Depew Field at Marren Park from May 18-20. The last time the Bison hosted the Patriot League Championship was back in 2014, the last time the Bison won the championship.

Bucknell led 5-4 after a strong start by Brady Hoar on the mound, and Everett Garber shut the door with three strong innings in relief. Hadley Maxwell closed out the ninth inning for his 11th save of the year to tie Phil Futrick’s single-season record set back in 2003. Maxwell is now just one save away from tying Futrick’s record of 15 career saves. His 11 saves are tied for sixth-most in the NCAA.

The Bison trailed 1-0 early on, but the Bison got three runs off of two Navy errors before timely hitting in the fourth gave the Bison two more runs for a 5-1 lead. Michael Trommer then provided a big insurance run in the seventh with a double into the gap when the game was 5-4.

Hoar gave the Bison 5.2 strong innings on the mound in just 61 pitches. The All-Patriot Leaguer showed great command, throwing 46 strikes and just 15 balls. He was on a great pace, but a big three-run inning for Navy to get back into the ballgame chased Hoar out of the game as Navy cut the lead to one run.

Trommer had two hits in the ballgame including his big RBI in the seventh. Billy Fluharty and Andrew Swenson had the only other RBIs in the game as the Bison scored three unearned runs off of errors.

Navy opened the game with a quick run on two hits. Chris Klug hit a one-out double, and Patrick Walsh came through with a two-out single to score the run.