St. Louis – The Maryville baseball team took on Great Lakes Valley Conference foe Rockhurst at Weber Field and were on the short end of the doubleheader. The Hawks took game one, 4-1 and won the night cap 11-1.
The Hawks strung together four hits in the second inning including a two-out triple to right center to grab a 3-0 lead and then added another run in the third to extend the lead to 4-0. Maryville did not advance a runner past second base until the sixth inning when
Mitch Carriger drilled his ninth round tripper of the season, which put him atop the single season list for home runs, over the right center field wall to cut the Rockhurst lead to 4-1. That was as close as the Saints would get as Michael Lydon-Larson shut down the Maryville attack over the last three innings to earn the win.
AJ Dean suffered his first loss of the season, going three innings and giving up four runs on eight hits. Carriger paced the Saints at the plate in going 2-for-4 with an RBI while
Zack Ruckman,
Tyler Catlett, and
Connor Markell all had a pair of hit for Maryville.
The Hawks opened up game two by taking advantage of a throwing error and a two-run single to grab a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Rockhurst plated a run in the top of the fourth to take a 3-0 lead, but Maryville made things interesting in the bottom of the fourth as they loaded the bases on a pair of hit by pitches and a single by
Louis Niemerg with two outs, but the Hawks forced Markell to line out to the pitcher to get out of the inning.
The Hawks added four runs in the fifth inning and three more runs in the sixth inning to extend the lead to 10-1. The Saints scratched across a run in the sixth as
Ben Nobs came in to pinch hit and drilled a double to left and scored on a ground out to cut the lead to 10-1. The Hawks scored an insurance run in the seventh to take an 11-1 advantage. Maryville had the bases loaded in the home half of the seventh, but Rockhurst forced a ground out to end the game and improve to 15-11 and 3-3 in GLVC play.
Joey Lodes fell to 3-1 on the year, going 4.1 innings and giving up seven runs on seven hits with five strikeouts. The Saints offense could only muster five hits in the game with Nobs going 1-for-2 and scored the saints only run to pace Maryville, who fell to 15-12 and 2-4 in the GLVC.
Maryville and Rockhurst complete their four-game series tomorrow at Weber Field with a doubleheader starting at noon.
