Rohde dazzles again as Pride earn series win over William Carey with Saturday doubleheader split

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Hoping to potntially move an early season winning streak to seven games, the streak got cut short at six for the Clarke University baseball team as they split Saturday's doubleheader with William Carey University with a 5-1 win and an 11-2 loss.

In the Pride's doubleheader opening 5-1 win, starting pitcher Isaac Rohde continued his dominant stretch through his first three starts as the lefty threw a complete game while striking out 10 as the only run surrendered came on a second inning solo home run as he finished allowing five hits and one walk. Rohde has now struck out 10 or more batters in each of his first three starts, all seven inning outings to currently rank 14th in the NAIA in total strikeouts at 35 with the second-fewest innings among anyone in the top 14.

Trailing 1-0 early like they did in Friday night's game one, Clarke answered with a pair in the third on two separate wild pitches before Paul Von Zboray drove in the third run on a sacrifice fly and Kieron Crowder singled home Brendan O'Connor to make it 4-1 as Kainoa Torres finished off the scoring with an RBI double in the fifth inning.

The fortunes would be reversed in the series finale as this time the Pride would take an early lead with a run in the first on a two-out throwing error then another in the second on a sacrifice fly from Victor Lara that would drive in Tommy Peterson but a potential bigger inning was cut off when a Bubba Thompson single to right had a runner thrown out at the place to end the innning.

Thompson had the only two hits in the second game of the day for Clarke as they scored their first two runs before recording a hit and couldn't get much offense going once the Crusaders went to Lane Jarreau out of the bullpen. 

William Carey used a big seven-run fifth inning to pull ahead and never look back as they used a pair of two-RBI hits first a single from leadoff hitter RJ Stinson then a double from Jake Lycette to make it 6-2 at the time. WCU added four in the bottom of the eighth to really put the game away with the finishing blow coming off of the bat of Rigoberto Hernandez who doubled to left center, driving in two before he was thrown out trying to extend it to a triple.

Clarke will return to Dubuque before getting back on the road for a trip to Gwinnett, Ga. to play three games in total, two against No. 7 Georgia Gwinnett College and the third against Lourdes University as their final non-conferenc weekend of the 2023 schedule on Mar. 3-4.