LEWISTON, Maine -- The Bates baseball team nearly rallied from five runs down but came up just short in a 7-5 loss to the Trinity College Bantams Friday afternoon in NESCAC action. 

Trinity (15-7, 4-3 NESCAC) grabbed a 7-2 lead with one run in the fourth, two in the fifth, and three in a controversial sixth inning that saw the Bobcats (12-10, 1-6 NESCAC) protest the game due to a balk call. The protest was ultimately denied Saturday morning. 

Junior Luke Linnehan (Hingham, Mass.) got the start for Bates and went five plus innings, giving up seven runs (five earned) on nine hits. He walked three and struck out three. The bullpen did a good job keeping the Bobcats in the game, combining for four shutout innings. Sophomore Matthew Shrake (Chicago) tossed three scoreless frames to keep the Bantams at bay. 

Down 7-2, the Bobcats got the bats going in the bottom of the eighth. With two outs, first-year Jack Margiloff (Rye, N.Y.) doubled to left. Sophomore Ben Genser (Newton, Mass.) singled him home and the deficit stood at 7-3.

In the bottom of the ninth, junior Christopher Cimino (Scarborough, Maine) drew a lead-off walk. Senior captain Tyler Attal (Los Angeles) doubled him to third and senior Henry Jamieson (St. Simons Island, Ga.) drove in Cimino with an RBI groundout to third. Then sophomore Brandon Biggane (Rensselaer, N.Y.) launched a deep drive to right-center but Trinity's Colin Mann tracked it down in the gap for the second out of the inning. Senior captain John Nowak (Pelham, N.Y.) followed with an RBI single, trimming the deficit to 7-5. 

The Bantams brought in reliever Ian Brown, who struck out the next batter to end the game. 

Bates briefly held a 2-1 lead on Friday when the Bobcats tallied a pair of runs in the third inning against Trinity starter Kody Perry (4-0). Junior Jack Brennan (West Hartford, Conn.) drew a walk to start the frame and Cimino singled him to second. Both runners moved up 90 feet on an Attal ground out and Jamieson singled them home.

But the lead didn't last long, as Trinity tallied an unearned run in the top of the fourth, tying the game at two. Then the Bantams took the lead for good with two runs in the fifth and three more in the sixth. 

Perry bounced back from his rough third inning to toss six innings of two-run ball to get the win. Bates out-hit the Bantams 13-12 in the contest but the Bobcats left 11 on base. Cimino, Attal, Biggane, Nowak, and Genser all tallied two hits apiece for the Bobcats. Bates had some early bad luck, including a triple play turned by the Bantams in the second inning on a hit-and-run. The Bobcats left the bases loaded in both the first and third innings.

The Bobcats host the Bantams for a doubleheader Saturday at 11am.