By: The Blueboys were dominant for eight innings and then held off a late charge for a 9-5 victory over RMU-Springfield.
Box Score
JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College baseball team led comfortably throughout most of the game on Tuesday afternoon before running into trouble in the ninth inning. Though RMU-Springfield mounted a comeback late, the Blueboys held on for a 9-5 win to improve to 8-18 on the season.
Dylan Jones (4-2) threw five innings and shut down the Eagles during most of his time in the game. After a pick-off by Jones helped end the top of the first,
Brennan Bergstralh singled with two outs in the bottom of the inning and
Eli Fox followed that with a home run to left-center to put Illinois College on top, 2-0.
In the third inning, IC loaded the bases with no outs and Fox added another RBI with a deep fly to center field to score
Taw Fredrickson for a 3-0 advantage. The offense kept rolling in the fourth.
Zack Seymour,
Seth Woollen and
Alex Lilly all singled to start the inning off and a wild pitch brought Seymour home. Fredrickson then hit a sacrifice fly to left to make it 5-0.
RMU-Springfield got its only run against Jones on a Joe Bridges solo home run in the top of the fifth inning. The Blueboys answered back with a Fox lead-off double in the and a Seymour RBI single.
After
Ethan Crain got through the Eagles in the sixth inning, Illinois College pulled away with a long ball. Woollen reached base to start the inning on an error from the RMU-Springfield shortstop and Fredrickson then singled to put two aboard.
Alec Wade followed him in the order and crushed a three-run homer to make it 9-1.
The score stayed there until the ninth inning. A walk and a single had two runners on board with one out when pinch-hitter Steven Shigley hit a three-run bomb to left, making it 9-4. RMU-Springfield followed that with a single, double and single before
Tyler Kozaritz got Jeffrey Leach to strike out and Zak Merchant to fly out to end the game.
Illinois College ended with 14 hits in the game. Bergstralh and Seymour each had three. Fredrickson, Fox and Lilly each had two.
Illinois College will travel this weekend to Mauston, Wis. for the first-ever MWC Crossover in baseball. The Blueboys will play each North Division opponent once, beginning on Friday night with a 7 p.m. matchup against Ripon College.
