ANGOLA, IND.-- The Trine baseball team was swept by Calvin Thursday afternoon at Jannen Field.
The Knights took advantage of several Thunder defensive miscues to score six unearned runs in the 9-3 victory in game one. Calvin rallied back from a three-run deficit to take game two in nine innings by a 5-4 final. Peter Cupery had four hits and knocked in four runs to lead the Knights. Jeff Phillips (Prospect, Ohio/Marion Pleasant) stayed hot at the plate for Trine, picking up five hits. The senior is 13-for-24 over his last six conference games. Adam Sullivan (Fort Wayne, Ind./Elmhurst) added four hits. Trine falls to 12-22 overall, 7-15 in the MIAA. Calvin improved to 20-12 overall and 14-8 in conference play.
Game One: Calvin 9, Calvin 3
The Knights capitalized on five Thunder errors to score six unearned runs in the 9-3 victory.
Calvin scored in the first three innings to jump out to a 4-0 lead. An RBI-single by Cupery got the Knights on the board in the first. A two-run single by Travis Kraai made the score 3-0 in the second, before a Jalen Bouma RBI-single in the third gave the Knights a four-run advantage.
The Thunder loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth and were able to scratch across runs on a Luke Porter (Noblesville, Ind./Noblesville) RBI-single and an RBI-walk drawn by Kyle Auernhamer (Vassar, Mich./Vassar). A Jordan Baer (Fort Wayne, Ind./Leo) sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth scored Sullivan and cut the score to 4-3.
Three of the Knights' four runs over the fifth and sixth innings were unearned. Bouma and Ben Wohl each picked up RBI's for Calvin as they closed out the victory.
Kyle Wasserberg picked up the victory in three innings of relief. He allowed an earned run on five hits, walked one and did not strike out a batter to improve to 3-0 on the season.
The Thunder stranded 11 runners in game one.
Game Two: Calvin 5, Trine 4 (9)
The Knights overcame a three-run deficit in the seventh and prevailed in extras.
Trine scored four runs in the third to seemingly take command of the game. They were able to capitalize on four Calvin errors in the inning. An RBI-singly by Drew Burgess (Middlebury, Ind./Northridge) knocked in the first run, with second run coming in on the play when the ball was thrown away by a Knight outfielder. Porter picked up the other RBI, with a second run also coming in to score on the same play due to an error. The big inning put the Thunder up 4-1.
Andy Farrell (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio/St. Vincent St. Mary) turned in another strong start, allowing just one earned run over six innings of work. The freshman has allowed three earned runs or less in all but one of his seven starts.
The Knights rallied back with a three-run seventh to force extras. All the runs that scored in the inning were unearned. Ben Wohl knocked in the first run with an RBI-single. Two batters later, Cupery tied the game with a two-run single.
The winning-run scored in the ninth when Michael Kamp came in on a wild pitch with the bases loaded.
Jeff Victor earned the win for Calvin with 2.2 innings of shutout relief. Victor has not allowed an earned run 24.1 innings this season.
Ethan Prebynski (Auburn, Ind./DeKalb) surpassed the 100-hit plateau for the Thunder, and now has 103 career hits.
The two teams wrap up the MIAA-series this Saturday, Apr. 26 with a doubleheader at Calvin beginning at 1:00 p.m.