ANGOLA, Ind. – The Trine University baseball team struck first against visiting Adrian College, but a pair of big innings by the visiting team ended the game early with an 21-4 score after eight innings.
Owen Mitchell made his first start in the contest and pitched a great first inning. He struck out the first batter and then drawing a flyball and ground out for the quick inning.
In the bottom half of the same inning the Thunder had their first two batters reach. Luke Burford led off with a single to the pitcher before Daniel Rumberger made it on an error by the pitcher. After a pair of outs the team had runners on the corners for Nathan Gilmet who came through with an RBI single to left field.
The Bulldogs took the lead in the second, scoring three runs, and then added to that lead in the fourth with a single run.
Down 4-1, the Thunder mounted a comeback attempt in the bottom of the fourth. Brody Bond led off the inning with a single, before moving to second on a sac bunt. Burford singled to second base to move Bond to third, before he scored on a throwing error by the Bulldogs. The visiting side got out of the inning allowing just the one run still with a 4-2 lead.
Adrian had their first big inning in the top of the fifth, posting eight runs to build a commanding 12-2 lead and putting Trine in danger of the run rule.
With the same score in the bottom of the seventh the team was down to its final three outs. Tyler Beyke drew a walk to start the inning and then moved to third on an attempted sac bunt by Burford, that turned into an error by the pitcher. Beyke scored during the next at-bat on a balk by the Bulldog pitcher. Dalton Nikirk brought home a second run on a tricky groundout to first base, cutting the lead to 12-4.
Adrian responded with another big inning in the top of the eighth, plating nine runs to build the final lead of 21-4. After a quiet bottom half of the inning the game ended early due to the run-rule.
The Thunder fall to 10-19 overall and 2-10 in MIAA play following the loss. They will continue their season when they host Kalamazoo College for the start of the three-game series on Friday, April 19. That game is scheduled to start at 4 p.m.