Pride drop pair of close games in series opening doubleheader at Doane
CRETE, Neb. - Getting back on the road for yet another weather-related rescheduled series, the Clarke University baseball team dropped a pair of games to Doane University on Thursday afternoon by scores of 6-3 and 10-9.
In the opening 6-3 win for the Tigers, the home team took and extended an early lead by scoring six runs in the first four innings with only one run on a Hunter Flores RBI double coming for the Pride in the second inning for DU to lead 6-1 heading into the second half of the seven-inning game.
CU started a bit of a comeback effort in the fifth inning on a Bryn Vantiger home run before a top of the seventh inning saw the tying run come to the plate multiple times, first when Teddy Estudillo drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, making it first and second with two outs before Doane recorded the final out via a strikeout to close out the game.
On the mound for the Pride, Kevin Toala pitched all six innings to a complete game with only three of the six runs he allowed coming as earned on nine hits with five strikeouts for his first quality start in four starts so far this season.
Moving on to the nine-inning game two, it would be Clarke that jumped out to an early lead with a run each in the first and second inning as both Jaxon Brooks and Daniel Mendez had run scoring singles, but the Tigers answered in their half of the second with a three-spot to take a 3-2 lead heading to the third.
In that third innings, Brooks would deliver again with another RBI single, this time driving in a pair to regain the lead for the Pride at 4-3, as that lead only lasted a full inning before Doane tied the game at 4-4 in the fourth to start a back-and-forth stretch of trading run-scoring innings.
Both teams scored a run in the fifth, CU on Flores reaching on an error that also scored a run, Clarke scored two in the sixth and eighth as Ethan Hefel drove in a run in each of those innings with hits and the other runs coming on more Doane errors with two Tigers runs sandwiched in the bottom of the seventh to make it 9-7 heading into the bottom of the ninth.
Only able to get one out in the bottom of the ninth, Clarke gave up three hits, including a game-tying two-RBI triple also put the winning run on third before a pair of intentional walks loaded the bases for a possible force out at the plate.
The Pride got the ground ball they were looking for but couldn't make the play with an error ending the game in walk off fashion for the home team to pull out the 10-9 victory.
Both Brooks and Mendez finished with two hits with Hefel and shortstop Darin Eales both had four-hit games as Eales finished the day with six total hits to bump his season batting average up to .395 after recording eight hits in his last five games.
Clarke and Doane will finish up their four-games series with another doubleheader on Friday starting at 12:00 p.m. CT again in the same format as Thursday's set with one seven inning game and a nine inning game.