The Aquinas baseball team earned a non-conference split with visiting Lourdes on Thursday (Apr. 22) at the WMSC Sports Complex in Rockford. Aquinas took the opening game by a 9-8 score on a walk-off bunt single before Lourdes evened the doubleheader by winning the nightcap, 9-5.
With the split, Aquinas is 20-19 on the season and Lourdes is 15-21. The teams met on Mar. 20 in Toledo for the first WHAC games of the year; similar to Thursday, AQ won game one before Lourdes took the second game.
The Gray Wolves got out to a 4-0 lead in game one on Thursday with a four-run second inning.
Brady Paganelli and
Sean Wing collected RBI singles in the bottom of the second, sandwiched around a
Mark Binkowski run-scoring single to make it a 4-3 game. It was a 6-4 Lourdes lead in the third, when Binkowski delivered a two-run single up the middle to tie the score at 6-all.
A fourth inning RBI single from
Alex Strickland put AQ in front, 7-6. The Saints picked up a key insurance run in the sixth when
Michael Maher doubled to left field to bring in
Lucas Weinert for the 8-6 edge. Lourdes answered back with two runs in the top of the seventh, knotting the game at 8-8.
In the home half of the seventh, Paganelli led off with a hit by pitch and stole second. He moved to third base on a sacrifice bunt and Binkowski followed up by laying down a terrific suicide squeeze bunt towards first base that allowed Paganelli to easily score the game-winning run. There was no play at home or first, allowing Binkowski to collect the walkoff bunt single for his third tally of the game.
Binkowski finished 3-for-4 with four RBI and
Nathan Hughes also went 3-for-4 with a triple.
Kelvin Aracena was 2-for-4 with two runs scored, Paganelli scored three runs, and Wing finished 2-for-4.
Braden Nawrocki scored twice for the Saints, who outhit Lourdes by a 14-6 margin.
Conor Gausselin started and tossed three innings, allowing three earned runs and striking out four.
Nathan Myers threw two scoreless innings of relief and
Hunter Morrison (2-2) allowed one earned run in two innings.
Game two saw Lourdes score in four straight innings and build a 9-1 lead after the fifth. The Saints did mount a small comeback with a four-run sixth inning, which included a Wing RBI double and a run-scoring groundout from Aracena, along with two wild pitches to bring in a pair of runs.
Lourdes would close things out in the seventh inning to split the twinbill. The Gray Wolves outhit AQ by an 11-5 margin in the nightcap.
Ryan Gillings was the lone Saint with multiple hits, finishing 2-for-2. Hughes and Wing (both doubles) and
Dominic Guzman also collected a base hit.
Tyler Zomerlei (0-1) suffered the loss, giving up five earned runs in 3.1 innings.
Grant Smitz fanned three batters in 1.2 innings, while
Bruce Buurstra and
Richard Steffan each struck out a batter in a scoreless inning of relief.
The Saints head to Lima, Ohio this Saturday (Apr. 24) for a WHAC twinbill against UNOH. First pitch is set for 1:00 p.m.
