The Misericordia University baseball team used a dominant pitching performance from Pete Doggett to beat DeSales, 8-2, Sunday in Quakertown to force a decisive game for the Freedom Conference title, Monday at 7:30.

Doggett went 7.2 innings allowing just three hits and two earned runs while striking out three.

Kenny Durling led the Cougars with three hits while Jeff Slanovec and Nate Hamlin both had two hits.

Kenny Ridge, Brian Mauro, Justin Scerbo and Jason Hadinger had hits for DeSales.  Travis Hughes allowed five runs over five innings while absorbing the loss.

After an opening round loss, top-seeded Misericordia won its third straight game to improve to 35-8 while DeSales suffered its first loss of the tournament to fall to 29-13.

Misericordia went ahead 2-0 in the top of the second when Slanovec drilled a solo homer to left center field to lead off the inning.  Nate Hamlin was hit by a pitch and came around on Chris Tuttle's two-out double to left center past a diving Derek Chrismer.

The Cougars made it 4-0 in the third when Andrew Tressa led off with a single to center and moved to third on Will Minderjahn's hit-and-run single through the right side.  Durling singled through the box to make it 3-0 and Nate Hamlin drove in a run with a line drive single to left.

MU added a two-out run in the top of the fifth when Slanovec was hit by a pitch and came all the way around on Hamlin's line drive double to the wall in left center.

DeSales got on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Scerbo led off with a line drive single to right for the Bulldogs' first hit of the game and came around on Charles Dennis' sacrifice fly to right.

The Bulldogs added a run in the bottom of sixth when Brian Moser battled back from an 0-2 count to draw a walk before moving to second on Brian Mauro's line drive single back at Doggett.  After a wild pitch, Derek Chrismer drove home Moser with a sacrifice fly to right center.

Misericordia answered with three runs with two outs in the top of the seventh.  Slanovec lined a two-out single to center and moved to third when Nate Hamlin reached on an error.  After a balk and a wild pitch made it 7-2, Ryan Cacchioli doubled to left center and came home on Bubba Jasinski's single to left center.