The Aquinas baseball team played a home doubleheader against Indiana Tech on Sunday (Apr. 3) at De Witt Field in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Saints had good pitching and timely hitting in the 5-2 game one win, but after AQ tied the second game up in the bottom of the ninth the Warriors claimed the 7-5 10 inning affair. AQ now has a record of 12-21 (2-5 WHAC) on the season, while IIT sits at 14-15 (4-4 WHAC).
GAME 1: Aquinas 5, Indiana Tech 2
The Saints struck first in the bottom of the second inning as
Jake Paganelli doubled to right field and
Mark Binkowski reached on an infield hit to the shortstop with one one.
Tyler Zomerlei drove both runs in on a double to deep left field the ended up at the fence.
A response by the Warriors did not come until the top of the fourth inning as the first run came in on an errant throw to second on a stolen base attempt and an RBI single to right field.
That would be the only two runs scored by Indiana Tech as Aquinas regained the lead in the fifth with two runs and added an insurance run in the sixth. Walks by Zomerlei and
Dane Smitz plus a single by
Kelvin Aracena loaded the bases with one out in the fifth.
Nathan Hughes brought in the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly to center field and
Braden Nawrocki followed that up with a double down the left field line for the fourth run. In the sixth,
Nathan Wilcox laid down a squeeze bunt that plated
Sean Wing for the final run.
Zach Marshall pitched a gem and improved to 3-4 after the complete game. He allowed two runs on four hits and two walks, while striking out five.
Both Paganelli and Binkowski had multi-hit games for the Saints with Zomerlei leading the team with a couple RBI.
GAME 2: Indiana Tech 7, Aquinas 5 (10 innings)
The first three innings were smooth sailing in game two as
Garrett Cheslek made the start for AQ and pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only one hit and one walk with one strikeout.
Mason Hill followed Cheslek with another three innings and allowed runs in the fourth and sixth innings as IIT took a 2-0 lead.
The Saints finally got on the board in the sixth inning when Binkowski hit his first home run of the season that bounced off the top of the left center field fence and landed on the other side.
The lead was extended by the Warriors with two runs in the seventh inning off a homerun and another run on a balk in the eighth. Two of those runs were charged to
Grant Martin who pitched an inning an a third and the last one was charged to Hill with the runner he left on base.
Down 5-1, the comeback began in the bottom of the eighth inning as Binkowski smacked a double to left field that brought in Wing and Wilcox hit a double that bounced over the center field fence to bring around Binkowski. A little magic happened in the ninth with another two runs scoring to force extra innings. Nawrocki got it started with an RBI triple to right center field that scored Smitz. Zomerlei continued his big day with a single through the left side that brought in the game-tying run after the bases had been loaded.
Unfortunately, the Warriors prevailed in extras with a double in the tenth that scored two runs.
Josh Avink ended up with the loss after going two and two-thirds innings and allowing two runs on a hit and three walks with three strikeouts.
Hughes was 3-5 at the plate in game two as Nawrocki, Binkowski, Zomerlei, and Aracena all also had two hits.
Aquinas has a quick turnaround with a home nonconference doubleheader scheduled for tomorrow (Apr. 4) against Grace Christian. Games will be hosted at Davenport, begnning at 5:00 PM.
