BATAVIA, Ohio - The Mount St. Joseph baseball team was granted another home series due to a scheduling conflict for the Transylvania Pioneers, so the Lions welcomed Transy to Midland Field for an HCAC series this weekend. On Saturday pitching dominated the day as the Lions split the two games.
GAME ONE | MSJ 8 - Transy 2
In game one of the series the Lions sent sophomore right-hander
Nolan Miller to the mound to start the game. He was looking to bounce back from a disappointing performance in his last start, and bounce back he did. Miller pitched the front 7+ innings allowing four hits, 2 runs (1 earned), while striking out 6.
Offensively the Mount got the game going with three in the bottom of the first inning.
Anton Mere led off the game drawing a walk, he then stole second and third, scoring on an errent throw on the attempt to stop him from stealing third.
Andrew Harrison then drew a one out walk, and scored on an RBI double by
Jake Sanders. Sanders moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on an RBI groundout from
Brennan Martin.
Transy scored once in the fourth and once in the fifth, drawing within one. The score remained there as the Lions looked for insurance runs.
They would get that insurance in the bottom of the eighth, exploding for five runs to break the game open. Mere led off the inning with a basehit, and moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt by
Jordan Harley. Mere advanced on a wild pitch and scored on an RBI single from Harrison. Sanders and Martin then singled back-to-back to load the bases, an out later
Andrew Clements doubled into left center to score two.
Jackson Gutzwiller finished the scoring with a two-run single into left.
Josh Issacs came out of the bullpen in the 8th inning with a runner on first. He struck out a pair and stranded the inherited runner. He followed that up with a perfect ninth inning to secure the first save of his career.
GAME TWO | Transy 1 - MSJ 0
The Lions sent freshman
Zach deSylva to the mound to open game two. The right-hander allowed a first inning run, but scattered 6 hits over 6.0 innings to keep the Lions in the game.
The trio of
Kaiden Morris,
Ryan Caulfield and
Ian Busch pitched the 7th, 8th & 9th innings allowing three hits while holding the Pioneers scoreless.
One run was all the Pioneers would need as the Lions offense never got on track facing the Transy starter, who pitched a complete game shutout. They managed only three hits, two of which came off the bat of Martin.
UP NEXT
The Lions will play the rubber match of this series vs. Transy on Sunday, first pitch is schedueld for 1:00 PM
