By: The Green Knights scored three times in the first inning and led 7-0 after four in an eventual 9-2 win over the Blueboys.
Box Score
MAUSTON, Wis. – A rough start put the Illinois College baseball team behind the 8-ball early on in a 9-2 loss to St. Norbert College on Saturday afternoon. The Green Knights scored three runs in the top of the first and added three more in the third. The lead was 7-0 after four and though the Blueboys chipped away from there, the Green Knights closed it out easily for the win. IC drops to 8-20 (3-11 Midwest Conference), while St. Norbert improves to 19-8 (9-2 MWC).
Tyler Kozaritz (1-6) ran into trouble in the first, but a throw home from
Alex Lilly to
Alec Wade to get Hunter Larson at the plate almost got the Blueboys out of the inning. With two down, Tyler Banovich stole second and then came home to score on a RBI single by Jacob Raeder. As the inning progressed, Robbie Dombrowski scored two more runs with a single to make it 3-0 before the Blueboys had their first turn at bat.
In the third, St. Norbert had two on and two out when Ray McDonald singled to center. An error by
Seth Woollen allowed two runs to score and McDonald moved up to second. The next batter, Jack Maastricht, doubled in McDonald for a 6-0 lead. A seventh run came in for the Green Knights in the fourth inning as a ground ball with the bases loaded resulted in a fielder's choice RBI.
Illinois College got on the board in the bottom of the seventh. Following two groundouts to start the inning,
Taw Fredrickson walked and Wade singled him to third base. That ended the day of starting pitcher Blake Rutherford and
Brennan Bergstralh immediately got to reliever Nick Klavekoske with a RBI single.
The Blueboys added one more in the eighth to make it 7-2.
Robbie Cooper was hit by a pitch and moved to second on a groundout before reaching third on a wild pitch.
Tim Sommerfeld then singled him home.
St. Norbert extended its lead back to seven runs in the ninth with a sacrifice fly and a RBI single. The Blueboys went down in order in the bottom of the inning to end it.
Bergstralh and Sommerfeld each had two hits apiece to lead the IC offense. Kozaritz threw five innings before giving way to
Ben Kettelkamp. Kettelkamp went 2.0 innings and gave up just one hit and one walk while striking out three.
Beau Parkevich and
Jared Guizzetti handled the eighth and ninth innings, respectively.
Illinois College concludes the MWC Crossover tomorrow with a doubleheader. The Blueboys first play Lawrence University at 10 a.m., then take on Beloit College at approximately 1 p.m.
