Trojans Draw Even in Day-One Doubleheader with Spring Arbor
KOKOMO, Ind. – Throughout an unusually quiet day for the Trojan offense, the No. 25 Taylor University baseball team split its Saturday doubleheader with Spring Arbor (16-17-1, 10-12 CL) at Championship Park in Kokomo, Indiana.
Taylor posted just 12 hits throughout the day's 16 innings, a relatively scarce day in comparison to what has been a season of abundant offense up to this point. Furthermore, six of the 12 base knocks were recorded by Trojan duo, TJ Bass and Kaleb Kolpien, with Bass blasting two home runs and Kolpien reaching base in six of eight plate appearances throughout the day.
Though it was senior shortstop, Nick Rusche, who dotted an exclamation mark at the end of Taylor's game-one victory, a contest in which a little late-game magic tipped the cards in TU's favor.
Before Rusche's big moment in the ninth, however, Trojan starting pitcher, Luke Shively, put forth yet another stellar outing on the mound. In what was his first no-decision performance of the year, the Taylor day-one starter went seven-and-a-third innings, scattering four hits and three walks while racking in seven strikeouts. Though, most impressively, Shively sat down 14-consecutive Cougar batters between the second and seventh innings.
All the while, Taylor's offense managed just two hits as the game moved into the seventh-inning stretch. That soon changed, however, when Bass stepped into the box in the top-half of the eighth and planted a Spring Arbor pitch out beyond the left-field fence, making it a one-one game.
Unfortunately the tied-score morphed into a Cougar advantage in the bottom-half of the eighth, when Spring Arbor cultivated a 3-1 lead heading into the ninth.
Failing to feel the pressure, though, with one out in Taylor's final at-bat, corner infielders, Camden Knepp and Kade Vander Molen, knocked back-to-back base hits, setting the table for left fielder, Jacob Morris, to tie the game with a two-run double to left. After Michael Pinarski reached base via a Cougar error and Drew Loy pinch ran for Morris at third base, Rusche then took center stage for his big moment: a two-out, two-run double to left to put the Trojans up 5-3.
Kolpien, then, made the move from DH to pitcher, sitting Spring Arbor down one-two-three and earning the fourth save of his freshman campaign.
Though Taylor would mount another comeback-bid late in game two, it was not enough to take two from the Cougars, as TU settled for a split in its series-opening doubleheader with Spring Arbor.
Along the way, Bass and Kolpien combined for four of Taylor's five game-two hits, the two Trojans combining for all three of Taylor's runs-batted-in.
The scoring started in the third inning, when Kolpien knocked a two-out RBI-single up the middle to give Taylor a one-run lead. Yet, the lead did not last, as Spring Arbor answered with three runs of its own in the bottom-half of the inning.
Taylor's offense then went cold until the seventh and final inning, when Pinarski led the inning off with a single to right while facing a four-to-one deficit. After an untimely double play, Rusche then prolonged the game when we was hit by a pitch with two strikes, inviting Bass back to the box with one on and two out.
The league's leader in RBI then added two more to his belt, after having blasted his second home run of the day and making it a 4-3 game. The comeback-bid fell short, though, as Spring Arbor soon after recorded the inning's final out to secure a one-run win in game two.
As a silver lining to the day's split, Bass now comfortably leads the league in RBI by a margin of 10, as his 60 runs-batted-in on the season sits third in the nation and only eight behind the TU single-season RBI-record set by Ryne Otis in 2010.
Bass and the No. 25 Trojans (27-11, 17-5 CL) are set to return to action on Monday, April 11th, when Taylor and Spring Arbor are scheduled to duke it out in their second doubleheader of the series. First pitch is slated for 1:00 pm ET in Spring Arbor, Michigan.