Hamline Baseball dropped two of three against the Simpson College Storm this past weekend in their final series before the team travels to Arizona for spring break.
Game one of Saturday’s double header started off slow, with both teams going scoreless through the first four innings. Following a walk and passed ball, the wheels would fall off for the Pipers, allowing seven runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Later in the eighth, Simpson tacked on three more to push their lead to ten, forcing a run rule to take effect, ending the game in the eighth.
The Storm pitching staff shut down the Pipers’ offense in game one, accumulating double digit strikeouts to only one walk. Mac Enlow and Cade McGraw had the lone Piper hits with Enlow responsible for three of the four total. HU starting pitcher Conor Mestemacher took the loss on three earned runs despite starting the game strong with four strikeouts through the first four innings.
Game number two began with a two run first inning by Simpson followed by a Tyler Johnson game-tying blast in the third to knot the score at two apiece. Both teams would add another run until the Pipers ran ahead with three runs in the eighth. The Pipers maintained their 6–3 lead for the remainder of the game, splitting the Saturday set at one game apiece.
Despite only recording six hits and striking out eighteen times, the Pipers took advantage of six Simpson errors that resulted in three of the Pipers six total runs. Hamline’s pitching staff took care of business totalling eleven strikeouts. Freshman Jacob Barmore recorded another multi-hit outing as well as scoring two of the Pipers’ runs.
Sunday’s rubber match would have the Pipers sprinting out the gates to grab a 6–1 lead in the second inning. After extending their lead to a score of 9–2, the Storm began to close the gap putting up four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Simpson College went on to score six more runs in the bottom of the seventh, taking the lead off of a three run shot into right center. The two run lead held for the rest of the game as Hamline fell in the deciding game three by a score of 12–10.
Despite the loss, the Pipers were led by a solid performance from Braeden Bourne who tallied two hits and an RBI. The top performer for the Pipes’ final game goes to Max Gertsner who went three for five at the plate with two doubles along with three RBI.
The Hamline baseball season will continue March 9 as the Pipers will travel to Tucson, AZ, for their annual spring break trip.