Jared Zimbardo’s five RBI day and Gabriel Romano’s strong relief outing proved to be the key difference in pushing the Bobcats over the Jaspers, 9-7 on Friday afternoon.

Zimbardo struggled in his first two at-bats striking out twice against Manhattan starter Will Hesslink. However, in the bottom of the fifth inning, Zimbardo erased his past troubles at the plate with one swing, a three-run shot to deep center field.

“Resiliency is huge in the game of baseball,” Zimbardo said. “Even if you are struggling at the plate, you can pick yourself up at the next at-bat. You always have to stay positive, and I think that was huge for helping us come back today.”

From there on out, Zimbardo found his rhythm at the plate. He was a triple away from getting the cycle as he picked up an RBI double in the seventh and an RBI single in the eighth.

The two catchers for Quinnipiac, Keegan O’Connor, and Danny Melnick also found success at the plate. Melnick started off the Bobcats with a blast to deep left field to put them up in the early stages of the game while O’Connor went a perfect three-for-three with two RBIs while.

“Our bats are hot right now,” Melnick said. “It is a huge momentum swing to get on the board early and I hope when can continue to keep this momentum going throughout our series this weekend.”

Meanwhile, Gabriel Romano played hero for the Bobcats on the defensive end as he shut down the Jaspers’ offense for three straight innings.

Initially, the Jaspers were all over the Bobcats on the scoreboard as junior starter Brandyn Garcia allowed five runs in the first five innings and walked nine Manhattan batters.

Head coach John Delaney turned to the senior reliever Romano to get them out of the jam. The move proved to be successful as Romano threw 13 pitches through four innings and got eight groundouts before his day was done.

“You want to use as little amount of guys as possible,” Delaney said. “This gives us more ammo for the rest of the series. We always plan to use as many guys as we need to win the game and today, we only needed two pitchers to get the victory.”

Delaney trusted Romano to get through the remainder of the game and his trust paid off as Romano picked up his third win of the season.

Now, the Bobcats look to replicate their success from Friday’s performance as they face the Manhattan Jaspers for game two of the three-game series tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the Quinnipiac Baseball Field.