CRETE, Neb. – A wild baseball game took place on Wednesday afternoon (April 18) in Crete as old rivals Nebraska Wesleyan and Doane met on the baseball diamond. The Tigers rallied from five runs back and held on defeat the Prairie Wolves 10-9.
NWU scored four runs in the top of the 6
th inning to go up 8-3 after Doane had cut the Prairie Wolves early three run lead down to one. That wasn't the last rally for the Tigers as they scored six runs in the bottom of the 7
th inning to take a 10-9 lead.
The Prairie Wolves had golden opportunities to tie the game or take the lead in each of the final two innings, but came up empty on both chances. It marks the ninth one run loss on the year for the Prairie Wolves as they are 1-9 in games decided by a single run.
Derek Kolbush led off the 8
th inning with single, moved to second on a sacrifice and was after a wild pitch and only one out. A strikeout and ground out ended that threat. In the 9
th inning,
Joel Maxwell drew a one out walk. Pinch runner
Kyle Hunter replaced Maxwell but he was thrown out at second trying to move up on a pitch in the dirt.
Riley Ward and
Justus Stocks had back-to-back hits once again putting the tying run in scoring position, but a ground out ended the game.
Matt Orozco blasted a two-run home run over the left field wall in the 2
nd inning giving the Prairie Wolves the 3-0 lead after
Tyler Winterstein scored earlier in the inning. Kolbush hit an RBI single in the 5
th inning making the score 4-0.
Doane scored three in the bottom of the 5
th but that setup a big 6
th inning for the Prairie Wolves. Two hit batters followed up with a pair of singles had NWU in business. Stocks hit an RBI single, then
Spencer Scheer flew out to deep right field. Great base running by the Prairie Wolves allowed two runs to score on the sac fly. Winterstein completed the inning with an RBI single to score Stocks.
Stocks hit an RBI single in the 7
th inning as the Prairie Wolves went ahead 9-4 and were primed to end their losing streak. Doane quickly overturned all the NWU momentum with five hits to bring in six runs in the 7
th inning. The tying run came in on a balk, then a dropped third strike kept the inning alive and Andy Theiler hit the game-winning RBI single.
Nebraska Wesleyan had 15 total hits, one more than the Tigers. However NWU left 11 runners on base and Doane stranded just four.
Riley Ward was 4-5 to pace the Prairie Wolves offense. Kolbush was 3-4 and Stocks was 3-6 with two RBI.
Josh Seiftert made his first start of the year going 4 2/3 innings allowing three runs on five hits.
Hayden Parker took the loss allowing three earned runs in one third of an inning. Doane used a total of nine pitchers in the game.
