The Wayne State College baseball team used hot hitting to guide them to winning three out of four against the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs.
The Wildcats improved to 17-12 overall and 13-7 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play, placing them third in the NSIC standings halfway through the conference slate.
Game one of the series took place on Friday, April 4. The Wildcats opened the scoring as Duluth starter Joe Gizzi walked Kaden Young with the bases loaded, scoring Cam Madsen.
After the Bulldogs tied it in the top of the second, WSC’s bats exploded for their first hot hitting streak of the weekend. With two runners on, Wildcat second baseman Chase Douglas hit a triple to right center field scoring Madsen and Connor Hunt. Later in the inning, shortstop Quinn McCafferty singled to the same part of the park to bring Douglas home. The Bulldogs changed pitchers and walked two straight batters to bring another run home via the walk.
Douglas earned his third RBI of the contest in the third inning off a single, scoring Hunt. After three innings, the scoreboard read 6-1 WSC.
The Bulldogs didn’t go down without a fight, as they scored two in the fourth off a Sam Kliber double and added one in the sixth to make it 6-4 after the sixth. The very next inning, Duluth utilized a Nathan Rosenberg single scoring two more Bulldog runners to tie the game at six.
However, another stretch of hit hitting across the next two innings put the game back in the Wildcats’ control. The bottom of the seventh saw Casey Prychak hit a sacrifice fly with loaded bases to bring home McCafferty. The very next at-bat, Hunt hit a single up the middle to clear the bases bringing the WSC lead to three.
The bottom of the eighth saw even more offense. In another bases loaded situation, McCafferty doubled to right center to clear the bases and Young doubled the next at bat to bring McCafferty arund to score, capping the four-run frame and extending the WSC lead to 13-6.
Wildcat starting pitcher Jackson Shelburne gave five solid innings of work while junior Keinan Lentell pitched two innings of shutout baseball to earn the save and cap off the win in the series opener.
Saturday, April 6 featured a doubleheader. Game one started slow offensively as there were just three baserunners between the two teams in the first three and a half innings.
WSC broke the scoreless tie in the fourth. Douglas led off the inning with a single and took a journey around the basepaths. He advanced to second on a wild pitch. Then, he stole third base and came home on the same sequence off a throwing error from the Bulldog catcher.
Madsen hit a single in the fifth with the bases loaded to score two of the runners extending the lead to 3-0 after five innings.
The Bulldogs again battled back, pushing across two runs courtesy of an RBI single and a sacrifice fly. Wildcat closer Braden Cannon came on to finish the sixth, recording the final two outs in the inning to preserve the WSC lead.
Cannon also pitched the seventh. After giving up a leadoff single, a ball was lined right to Quinn McCafferty who made a miraculous play, snagging the liner and flipping it to first to double off the runner for a superb double play. Cannon got the last runner to ground out, earning the save and securing the WSC win 3-2.
Game two of the doubleheader saw Wildcat pitching struggles plague the effort. The Bulldogs immediately scored in the first then broke the game open in the second with three more runs. Wildcat hitting only saw four hits and a single run in the bottom of the fifth as they were silenced by Duluth pitching in a 7-1 loss.
Sunday, April 6 was the date of the series finale and hot hitting again led the way for WSC. The Wildcats started down 1-0 after Joey Flom took the first pitch of the game out of the park. WSC immediately retaliated and double the Bulldogs offensive production to take a 2-1 lead after the first.
More runs were added by each side to flash the offensive abilities. WSC momentarily held a 5-1 lead off a Madsen single and a Max Heard double the scored two in the bottom of the second. The top of the third saw Duluth get those three runs right back on three back-to-back-to-back at-bats.
The bottom of third saw WSC open the offensive floodgates and they did it in rare fashion. Young gave the Wildcats their first baserunner of the inning on a one-out single down the first base line. The next batter brought up Braden Cannon. The third baseman hammered a ball to center field that got the center fielder off balance, leading him to misplay the ball which allowed Cannon to go from home to home for an inside the park homerun.
After Prychak drew a walk, Brayden Chaney almost duplicated Cannon’s inside-the-parker, as another hot-shot got the best of the center fielder, but the Bulldogs were able to hold Chaney to a triple, still earning an RBI for the two-sport athlete.
Douglas came through with another two-RBI hit to push the Wildcat total into double figures and Douglas eventually came around to score on a Taylor Gill double, stealing second in the process. At the end of the third, WSC led 11-4 mostly in part to a six-run third frame.
WSC added three more in the fifth courtesy of a Gill homerun off the right field foul pole, and the Wildcats added two more in the seventh in two bases-loaded situations. The Bulldogs peppered runs throughout the rest of the game but never came close as the Wildcats take the win 16-8 and take the series.
The Wildcats are back in action this weekend on Saturday, April 12 and Sunday, April 13 for a three-game series against the 15-15 Concordia-St. Paul Golden Bears. Saturday sees a doubleheader beginning at 1:30 p.m., and Sunday’s series finale is slated for a noon first pitch.
