The Aquinas baseball team split its first two home games of the season in the WHAC series opener against Lourdes on Sunday (Mar. 20) at De Witt Field. The Gray Wolves scored the game-winning run in the top of the seventh inning in game one for the win and the Saints responded with a big offensive outburst in the 11-3 game two win. AQ now sits at 10-16 in the season and have begun the conferece season 1-1.

GAME 1: Lourdes 5, Aquinas 4

LU was able to score its first two runs of the game in the top of the first inning, but the Saints responded with three in the bottom half of the frame. Nathan Hughes got the inning going with a one-out single and Nathan Wilcox got on base after being hit by a pitch with two outs. Jake Paganelli, JD Gillies, and Braden Brown hit three straight RBI singles that brought in Hughes, Wilcox, and Paganelli to score.

The Gray Wolves regained the lead with runs in the second and fourth innings. However, Aquinas battled back and tied the game up in the fifth with Gillies coming through with another single to bring around Sean Wing.

Zach Marshall competed for six strong innings, but the first two runners reached in the seventh and one came around to score the eventual game-winning run. Marshall gave up five runs (three earned) on seven hits, five walks, and two AQ errors, while striking out three. Josh Avink got the final three outs in the sixth on two flyouts and a groundout.

Gillies finished the game 4-4 at the plate with two RBI as Hughes also collected three hits.

GAME 2: Aquinas 11, Lourdes 3

After the Gray Wolves jumped in front with a solo home run in the top of the first inning, AQ came back with two runs in the second on a ground-rule double by Mark Binkowski that hopped over the right center field fence to plate Wing and Wilcox.

Lourdes was able to tie the game back up at two with another solo home run in the fourth inning, but then the Saints came back to score six to take a commanding 8-2 lead. A Paganelli triple regained the lead and then back-to-back singles by Brown and Gillies put AQ up by three. Hughes was able to lift a sacrifice fly out to center field for the fourth run, while the final two came around on a single by Braden Nawrocki.

With LU scoring its final run of the game in the fifth, the last three runs came by way of the long ball for Aquinas. Brown launched his second home run over the left center field fence in the fifth inning for a solo shot. Then, Nawrocki put an exclamation point on the win with a towering two-run home run to right center field for his second home run of the year.

Mason Hill started on the bump for the Saints and received a no decision after going four innings and allowing two runs on six hits and a walk, while striking out two. Conor Gausselin improved his record to 3-1 after going five innings in relief and only giving up one unearned run on three hits and a walk to go along with four strikeouts.

Gillies, Nawrocki, Paganelli, Brown, and Kelvin Aracena all had two hits in the game as Nawrocki led the way with four RBI.

Aquinas will return to action with a single nonconference game at Calvin on Tuesday (Mar. 22), with first pitch scheduled for 3:00 PM.