Crawford Powers Explosive Offense as Taylor Takes Two
Box Scores Coming Soon.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The Taylor University baseball team surpassed the 20-win mark on Monday afternoon, when the Trojans took two against St. Francis (19-10, 8-6 CL) while outscoring the Cougars 24-1 throughout the day.
Conner Crawford spotlighted the Trojan offense effort throughout the day, smashing three home runs en route to six runs-batted-in. Meanwhile, Trojan starters, Luke Shively and Noah Huseman, were masterful from the mound, piling up a plethora of strikeouts in what was nearly a scoreless doubleheader.
In game one, Taylor won its fourth game of the season via the 10-run mercy rule, defeating St. Francis by a score of 13-1 in seven innings.
Shively (7-0) earned his league-leading seventh win of the season, completing six innings of work and allowing just one run on three hits. Shively's seven wins now grant him a share of the eighth spot in the nation, while his earned-run average settled at the league's second-best mark of 1.31 by the end of his outing. Meanwhile, the Trojan righty sat down eight Cougars via the strikeout, bumping his league-leading season-total to 60.
All things said and done, Shively went about his work fairly quietly on the mound, whereas the Taylor bats were nothing but loud at the plate. Each of the nine Taylor starters reached base throughout the game, crowding the bases en route to 13 runs scored.
TJ Bass and Crawford duked it out in the run-production category, the two combining for three home runs and seven of Taylor's 13 runs. Crawford held the edge with two home runs, meanwhile Bass fought not to lose hold of his league-leading RBI total and added four more throughout game one.
As out late, though, Crawford has been particularly hot at the dish, hauling in 15 RBI and blasting five home runs in his last five games, all the while maintaining a .500 batting average in that stretch.
Infielders, Camden Knepp and Nick Rusche, continued to work their craft in game one as well, the two combining for five runs scored. The senior shortstop leads the league with 34 runs scored thus far in the 2022 season, while Knepp's three game-one runs planted him at second with 31.
Crawford's hot-streak at the dish extended into game two, when he smashed his third home run of the day in the fourth inning and drove in his sixth RBI in the seventh to give Taylor starting pitcher, Noah Huseman (3-2), more than enough run-support to secure the win.
The game was fairly close throughout until the Trojans blew it open with a six-run seventh, after which the score ballooned to 11-0. With that cushion Huseman cruised to his third win of the season.
Huseman diced his way through the Cougar lineup, collecting a career-high 11 strikeouts in six innings of work while surrendering just two hits. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the strikeouts came in bunches for Huseman, as testified to by a second and fifth inning in which he struck out the side.
Crawford's three-home-run day increased his season-total to nine, which marks a career-high with more than half of the conference-season and postseason yet to play. The Westerville, Ohio, native's nine home runs sit second in the league, while his RBI-total leaped into a share of the league-lead with Bass at 43.
With solid performances of their own, Michael Pinarski and Ben Kalbaugh, each matched Crawford with three RBI in game two, the Trojan trio going a combined 6-11 at the plate en route to nine-combined runs driven in.
As Crawford and Bass have been jockeying for the league-lead in RBI, Huseman and Shively have done similar concerning strikeouts. After his eight-strikeout outing in game one, Shively increased his lead over Huseman to 13, a lead that quickly diminished to just two, however, due to Huseman's career-effort. Now, Shively and Huseman sit comfortably at the top of the league, with just one other Crossroads League pitcher within 10 ticks of their strikeout-totals.
While the two Trojan starters each put forth masterful efforts from the mound, neither achieved complete games as the comfortable leads carved space for two relievers to finish each game. Freshman, Conner Miller, completed game one with a one-two-three seventh, while lefty, Jack Ross, finished game two with a pair of strikeouts.
RV Taylor (21-9, 11-3 CL) has now won seven games-in-a-row and, as of now, is set to play next on Thursday, March 31st, when they are scheduled to travel to Goshen to take on the Maple Leafs at 1:00 pm ET. Keep an eye out for updates regarding game time and location, however, at TaylorTrojans.com.