ANGOLA, Ind. – The Trine University baseball team suffered a doubleheader sweep on Saturday afternoon at home versus Alma College in the penultimate series of the regular season. The Thunder fall to 10-25 overall and 2-16 inside the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) while the Scots of Alma are 24-13 and 13-5 in league play.
GAME ONE RECAP:
Starting pitcher Josh Hoogewerf danced around some traffic in the top of the first to keep Alma off the board and his teammates were able to provide him with five runs in the bottom half of the inning. Luke Burford and Daniel Rumberger started the inning with back-to-back doubles to get on the board immediately. An RBI single by Dalton Nikirk followed and Joel Walton reached on an error to set the table for Cole Temple to launch a homerun over the left field fence to go up 5-0 in the first.
The lead would not last long as Alma was able to plate three runs in the second, third and fourth innings to make the score 9-5. After sending all nine batters to the plate in the first, the Thunder were held hitless until the sixth inning, but a crooked number in favor of the visitors helped solidify the result for the Scots. Six runs in the sixth and another five in the seventh increased the deficit to 20-5 in favor of Alma as the game went final after seven innings.
Preston Henschen was 2-for-2 at the dish with a sacrifice as well. Hoogwerf (2-6) retired three batters on strikes in his team-high three innings of work.
GAME TWO RECAP:
The Trine starter Cam Nagel got game two underway by going through the order 1-2-3 to begin game two of the day. He would keep the zero on the board in the second as well and Temple singled in the bottom half of the inning, stole second and moved to third on a wild pitch before being left stranded.
A walk, a single and a three-run homerun put the Scots up 3-0 in the blink of an eye, but Nagel was able to settle down and get out of the inning. The Thunder responded with a run scored off the bat of Easton Rhodes in the bottom half of the inning to make it 3-1. That would remain the total until the top of the sixth when Alma added one more to increase their lead. Nagel (2-6) would exit with Trine still in striking distance after going 6.0 innings with four K's.
Kade Keele threw a scoreless inning in relief of Nagel, but it was not without the Scots threatening to score with the bases loaded. Trine would do the same in the bottom half of the seventh after Rumberger, Nikirk and Walton reached with two outs, but Alma was able to escape the hairy situation as well.
Five runs of insurance combined in the eighth and ninth innings gave the visitors some breathing room and a run scored on a groundball double play in the final inning for the Thunder was not enough in a 9-2 loss. Nikirk and Walton were each 3-for-5 at the plate and a multi-hit game was credited to Temple as well at 2-for-4. Cole Schmidthuber and Reid Courtwright had a combined three walks from the eight-hole in the lineup.
UP NEXT:
The final series of the regular season kicks off on Friday, May 3 at The University of Olivet. First pitch is set for 4 p.m.