Pride drop both ends of Monday's series finale doubleheader at Baker
BALDWIN CITY, Kan. - Following a series-opening split on Sunday, the Clarke University baseball team was unable to pull out at least a series sweep on Monday afternoon against Baker University in 8-3 and 14-12 losses in Baldwin City, Kan. to close out the four-game series.
Game three was a tough game for the Pride offense to get any rallies going as they only produced runs in a three-run third inning behind a Dean Ormonde two-RBI triple then was driven home on a Jin Hattori sacrifice fly to give CU a 3-2 lead at the time.
The Wildcats would answer back to tie the game in the bottom half of the third then took the lead back with a solo home run in the fourth, added two in the fifth then another solo home run int he sixth to cap the scoring on their way to the 8-3 victory.
BU starting pitcher Camden Karlin did a good job of limiting the traffic on the bases outside of the three-run third for Clarke producing a pair of three-up, three-down innings and forcing two different ground ball double plays in innings to face the minimum of three batters in four out of the seven innings on the mound.
Both offenses went on to play the homer game in a big way in game four as the two teams combined for nine home runs, five for the Pride and four for Baker, as all but three of Clarke's 12 runs were scored via the long ball and 10 of BU's 14 runs came from home runs in the finale.
The Pride took a lead in the top of the second on a Darin Eales two-run homer to left but the Wildcats would answer with a five-run bottom half that was capped off by a three-run shot off the bat of Brennan Johnson then Jackson Truman would hit his own three-run home run in the third to extend their lead to 8-2.
Clarke would answer with four in the fourth as Ormonde and Jaxon Brooks would go back-to-back with solo shots to lead off the inning before Eales would launch his second home run of the game with another two-run shot, cutting the lead to just two runs at 8-6.
Three more runs for Baker in the bottom of the fourth would pull their lead back to a five-run advantage before Alden Brown would hit his second three-run homer of the series to get CU right back within two runs but the Wildcats would extend the lead yet again to 14-9 over the fifth and sixth innings, allowing for CU's three-run seventh inning to only threaten with the go-ahead run at the plate but not be enough to salvage the final game with their 12-run offensive performance.
Adding an RBI double in the seventh, Eales would finish the game 3-for-4 with five RBIs and the two runs scored on the homers for his second-best offensive production game of the season when he drove in six and scored twice with two homers on Mar. 14 against Peru State.
Pride baseball will return home for their next Heart of America Athletic Conference series when they host Culver-Stockton College for four games on Saturday and Sunday April 12-13 with both day's doubleheaders scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m. CT at A.J. Spiegel Park.