Trojans Complete Four-Game Sweep of Cougars
FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The Taylor University baseball team achieved its fourth Crossroads League-series victory of the season on Monday evening, as the Trojans defeated St. Francis (19-16, 8-10 CL) in each of the day's two doubleheader games.
The day's events marked not only its fourth series-victory of the conference-season but also Taylor's second sweep of a Crossroads-foe. After outscoring the Cougars 24-1 on March 29th, when Taylor took the first two games of the series, the Trojans took two more against St. Francis today, this time outscoring the Cougars 21-10 throughout the day.
Game one ended in a 13-7 Trojan victory, fueled in large part by a seven-run third inning in which the Trojans slapped five singles in tandem with two free bases and two Cougar errors. The seven-run third, however, was sandwiched between two pairs of one-run innings, as the Trojans posted a run on the board in each of the game's first five innings before adding the final two in the top-half of the ninth.
Leading the way on offense for the Trojans was the one-two duo at the top of the lineup, Nick Rusche and TJ Bass, who collectively went 7-12 at the plate, driving in four runs and scoring five. Rusche tacked on three runs to his league-leading runs total, while Bass stole the team-lead in home runs from Conner Crawford with his 11th of the season.
Even more, Bass bumped his season RBI-total up to 57, an absurd mark for just 36 games played and one that both leads the league and sits third in the nation.
Meanwhile, Michael Pinarski, contributed a three-for-three performance of his own in game one, adding an additional RBI and two runs-scored.
However, it would be a lie to say that the Trojan-trio named above was the only contributing force for the Taylor bats, for each of the nine Trojan starters recorded an RBI, relentlessly causing havoc for the Cougar hurlers.
On the other side of the game, senior pitcher, Noah Huseman (4-2), started for Taylor in game one. Huseman completed five innings of work, scattering nine hits and four runs en route to his fourth win of the season. Furthermore, Huseman recorded seven strikeouts throughout his outing, which increased his season-total to 65 and now matches Shively for the league-lead.
Conner Miller, then, came on in relief to throw the sixth inning, in which he posted a zero in the Cougar run column. The freshman has now allowed just one run in his last four appearances, completing 5.1 innings of work in that span.
After Jack Ross navigated his way through two-and-two-thirds innings of work, senior, Drew Kindy, came on to close the ninth and cap the game at 13-7.
Taylor then wasted no time in securing a game-two lead, as the Trojans posted five on the board in the top-half of the first. This time the bats only worked two base knocks in their early-game rally, each of which capitalized on four free bases though to gain the early five-run advantage.
The two first-inning hits were recorded by Kaleb Kolpien, who ignited the rally with a one-out double, and catcher, Ben Kalbaugh, who later contributed a two-run single to center.
Those two hits were it for a while, though, as the bats went cold until the sixth inning, when pinch-hitter, Camden Knepp, slapped an RBI-single to left to make it a 6-2 game. In short time, however, the lead grew to six, as Kolpien struck his league-leading 57th hit of the season to plate two more Trojans.
Kolpien (2-1) was the lone Trojan to record multiple hits in game two, but he was also the starting pitcher for Taylor, marking the first start of his young career.
The freshman lefty worked a solid outing, completing four innings of work while allowing two runs and striking out five as Taylor built its 8-2 lead.
After Kolpien worked his way through his first-career start, Kindy secured his first-career save by completing the game's final three innings while maintaining the lead.
With his game-two appearance following a showing in game one, Kindy has now appeared in three-consecutive games, a sequence in which he has traversed four-and-a-third innings and allowed just three hits and no earned runs.
After Monday's pair of victories, Taylor (26-10, 16-4 CL) has now won 12 of its last 13 games and is set to return to action on Friday, April 8th, when the Trojans travel north to play Spring Arbor (15-14-1, 9-11 CL) at 1:00 pm ET.