The offense for the Wayne State baseball team came back to life over the weekend, but the pitching and defense lacked for the ‘Cats, who dropped three of four games to Minnesota-Crookston over the weekend at the Pete Chapman Baseball Complex in Wayne.
WSC now sits at 4-17 on the season and 1-5 in NSIC play.
Crookston jumped out to a 9-1 lead after four frames in Saturday’s matinee, but the ‘Cats were resilient, scoring once in the fifth and busting out for six runs in the sixth.
It was too little, too late, however, as WSC dropped yet another one-run contest, losing by a score of 9-8.
Matthew Wood lost his second game of the season, allowing six runs on six hits in 2 1/3 innings. While the bullpen pitched the best they have since early in the season, the early deficit proved too much to overcome.
In the nightcap Saturday, the two teams slugged it out all afternoon, with the ‘Cats coming back from a 12-4 deficit to force extra innings after the squads were deadlocked at 13 through nine innings.
The Golden Eagles had the last laugh, using four hits and a WSC error to push four runners across the plate in the 10th. The ‘Cats slugged 17 hits in the contest but just couldn’t match the last offensive surge.
The nearly four-hour contest was a tough loss to swallow for the ‘Cats, whose defensive woes were exposed again. They had five errors in the contest, and ended the weekend with a total of 10 errors for the weekend.
“It’s hard to keep your confidence when you make crucial errors,” coach Alex Koch said. “Winning is the end-all cure to that.”
Win is exactly what WSC did to start off their Sunday afternoon, crushing 22 hits on their way to a 20-9 thrashing of the Golden Eagles.
Every starter had at least one hit in the game for WSC, with eight of the nine starters recording multiple hits. Bodie Cooper, Alex Kreft and Aaron Krier all blasted round-trippers for the ‘Cats, who also had six doubles as a team.
“Our bats have been pretty solid for us for most of the year,” Koch said. “They were nothing but great this weekend.”
Tanner Ledezma evened his record at 2-2, tossing five innings, allowing six runs (five earned), on nine hits and a walk, while also fanning seven.
It looked like the ‘Cats were on their way to a Sunday sweep, taking a 9-7 lead into the ninth inning of the nightcap, but Crookston rallied for three runs to hand WSC their second one-run loss of the weekend, this time by a tally of 10-9.
Cody Jenkins belted his second dinger of the season, and Kreft hit his second homer of the day in the second half of Sunday’s doubleheader.
Mitch Ragan was in line for the win, allowing five earned runs on eight hits in seven innings, but his win was spoiled by timely Golden Eagle hitting, something Koch expected coming into the series.
“Crookston is one of the hottest teams in the NSIC, and they carried over their hot hitting into this weekend,” Koch said. “They are a good hitting team, but at the same time, we need to get better on the mound.”
WSC will be back on the diamond Wednesday, when they will travel to take on Concordia-St. Paul for a doubleheader beginning at 1:30 p.m.