JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College baseball team lost a ninth-inning lead and fell to Grinnell College in Sunday's opening game, 4-3, but regrouped and came out swinging in game two of the afternoon, downing the Pioneers by a score of 11-5. The Blueboys go to 17-15 (6-6 Midwest Conference South Division). The Pioneers are 12-18 (6-6 MWC South) but would fall behind IC in the standings if tiebreakers were to come into effect for MWC Tournament qualification since the Blueboys took three out of four from Grinnell in the series.
Though other results around the rest of the MWC could factor into play by the end of the day on Monday, Illinois College currently occupies the second spot in the MWC South Division standings and would be in line to advance to the MWC Tournament. The Blueboys can assure themselves of qualification next weekend when they host Cornell College for four games at Joe Brooks Field on May 4 and 5. Action gets underway at 12 p.m. each day.
Game One: Grinnell 4, Illinois College 3
Behind solid pitching from
Brian Kindt and
Austin Newton, Illinois College had a 3-1 lead going into the eighth inning against Grinnell in the opener. Things fell apart after that for the IC bullpen however and the Pioneers were able to rally for one run in the eighth and two in the ninth to grab the shock win.
Illinois College put two of its runs on the board in the bottom of the third with RBIs from
Colin Dearing and
Eli Fox. Grinnell scored its only run against Kindt in the fifth inning when he gave up his only hit of the day and the Pioneers pushed a run across on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-1.
That was answered back with a run in the sixth inning from Illinois College when
Brendan Stanfield led off with a double and later scored on a RBI groundout from
Dillon Hallemann to take a 3-1 lead.
Things were cruising along until the eighth inning when Grinnell reached base with three walks and scored on a wild pitch to pull within one. In the ninth, the Pioneers were down to their final out with the bases empty until a double, walk and double plated two to give them a 4-3 lead. Illinois College went down in order in the bottom of the ninth as Brock Weirather earned a complete-game victory.
Game Two: Illinois College 11, Grinnell 5
The Blueboys weren't down for long, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first inning in game two.
Quinn Miller pitched three innings of solid relief and earned the victory to move to 2-2 on the season.
After going down a run in the top of the first inning, Illinois College jumped on Seth Bartusek and scored four in the bottom half of the inning, ending his day before he had recorded even three outs.
Bailey Reed,
Cade Hennemann and
Grant Argyilan all had RBIs in the inning.
Grinnell managed to tie the game at 4-4 by the fourth inning, but left the bases loaded in both the fourth and fifth.
Brennan Bergstralh gave Illinois College the lead for good, driving in two in the fifth inning with a base hit back up the middle.
The Blueboys extended their lead in the sixth as Stanfield and Reed each crushed balls down the right field line for extra bases, driving in runs to make it 8-5. Argyilan and Bergstralh each followed with RBIs in the inning to take a 10-5 lead. A Grinnell error in the seventh allowed another run to score, making it 11-5.
Ben Kettelkamp and
Levi Parkevich closed the game out without shutout innings of relief in the eighth and ninth to preserve the victory.
