Freshman Austin Hadley kept the Cavs in the game with five innings of relief after the Cavs fell behind early against Puget Sound on Sunday. Hadley's work got rewarded, too, as he picked up the win after the Cavs' seven-run sixth inning erased a four-run deficit to the Loggers.
Cavs Split against Lutes, Loggers on Final Day of Cascade-Northwest Challenge
BOX SCORES : Game 1:
Pacific Lutheran I Game 2:
Puget Sound
PORTLAND—The Concordia baseball team came back from a four-run deficit to beat Puget Sound and split its two games during the final day of competition within the Cascade-Northwest Challenge on Sunday.
The Cavs trailed the Loggers 6-2 through five and a half innings, but scored seven runs in the bottom of the sixth en route to an 11-6 win. The comeback victory was the Cavs’ fourth already this season and tied the Cavs’ largest comeback in any game this season (the Cavs also came back from four-run deficits in their wins over British Columbia on Saturday, Feb. 9 and Central Washington on Saturday, Feb. 16). All four of the Cavs’ comebacks this season have come after the Cavs had trailed in the sixth inning or later.
The comeback win over the Loggers helped the Cavs get over a tough, 3-0 loss to Pacific Lutheran to start the day in which all three of the Lutes’ runs came unearned.
Sunday’s split moved the Cavs to 7-7 for the season. The team will next play Sunday, March 3, when they travel to face Saint Martin’s University for a doubleheader that starts at 11 a.m.
Game 1—Pacific Lutheran 3, Concordia 0
Coming off a one-hit shutout of George Fox the night before, the Cavs got another strong pitching performance in their first game Sunday as CU starter Alex Bos took a two-hit shutout into the eighth inning.
Bos’ strong pitching could not overcome a tough top of the eighth defensively, however, as the Cavs committed three early errors in the inning, which led to all three of the Lutes’ runs in the game.
Bos had been dominant before the eighth as he gave the Lutes just three base runners to that point in the game, while retiring the Lutes in order in five of the first seven innings.
The Cavs got out a threat from the Lutes in the top of the sixth, too, when the Lutes’ Drew Oord singled, then moved to third with one out thanks to a wild pitch and sacrifice bunt. Oord then tried to come home on a squeeze play, but teammate Jacob Olsufka missed on his bunt attempt, leaving CU catcher Ben Talbot with an easy tag at the plate.
The Cavalier offense, meanwhile, had plenty of chances early as they got at least one runner in scoring position in each of the first four innings. The Cavs wound up stranding seven runners in scoring position in the game against the Lutes, five of which came in those first four innings.
The Lutes’ Chris Bishop contributed to the Cavs’ scoring frustrations as he struck out 14 Cavalier batters over the first seven innings of the game. Bishop struck out batters to end the first three innings, too, all of which ended with a CU runner on third.
Overall, the Cavs outhit the Lutes 7-3 in the game with Blake Drake and Jared Young leading the Cavs with two hits apiece.
On the mound, Bos got the loss despite not giving up an earned run in the game, while Bishop picked up the win for the Lutes. AJ Konopaski also came in and pitched the final two innings for the Lutes to earn a save.
Game 2—Concordia 11, Puget Sound 6
The frustrations of the first game Sunday seemed to fuel the Cavs in the latter part of the second game as the Cavs scored the final nine runs of their game against Puget Sound to run past the Loggers, 11-6.
The Cavs completed the comeback in just one inning as they turned a 6-2 deficit into a 9-6 lead with a seven-run sixth inning. Carl Beckert led off the inning with a double, starting a string of six straight hits for the Cavs to start the inning. Freshman Elliot North had the biggest hit of the inning for the Cavs, as he hit a pinch-hit double down the right-field line with the bases loaded that scored the Cavs’ first three runs of the inning. North’s three-run double was just his second career hit at Concordia—and his first extra-base hit—and brought the Cavs within one at 6-5.
North’s hit also seemed to fuel the Cavs going forward as the Cavs’ next three batters all reached safely to continue the rally. Blake Drake plated the Cavs’ go-ahead run during the inning as he hit a double to left that scored North and Jimmy Sanchez and give the Cavs their first lead at 7-6.
The Cavs still weren’t done in the sixth, though, as Sheldon Austria followed Drake with his third walk of the game, while Jordan Keeker moved Drake and Austria into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. Jared Young then capitalized on Keeker’s sacrifice during the next at bat as he hit a double to right center that plated Drake and Austria for the Cavs’ final two runs of the inning.
The Cavs did not falter once they took the lead, either, as the Cavs’ defense did not allow a Logger past first base over the final three innings of the game.
The late-inning defense was a nice rebound from the start of the game when two CU errors in the top of the first gave the Loggers four unearned runs and the early lead. The Cavs came back with two runs in the bottom of the first, but the Loggers answered both with individual runs in the top of the second and top of the fourth.
Freshman Austin Hadley kept the Cavs in the game with five solid innings pitched in relief, however, and earned the win after the Cavs’ comeback in the sixth. Hadley finished with seven strikeouts in the game, while only giving up one run on four hits and two walks.
Blake Evetts and Christian Bannister, meanwhile, closed out the game with a scoreless inning each over the eighth and ninth innings.
Offensively, Drake and Young led the Cavs with two hits each, while Drake and Austria led the Cavs with two runs scored each. In addition, Young and North both had three runs batted in in the game to lead the Cavs.