The Wayne State College baseball team earned a series split with the Minot State Beavers across four games to move to 11-10 on the season and 7-5 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play.
The four-game set was played across two doubleheaders on Saturday, March 22 and Sunday, March 23. Coming into the series, both teams sat at 5-3 in the conference standings and were looking to create some separation amongst the rest of the conference’s competition.
Game one on Saturday was highlighted by a dominant performance from Wildcat senior ace Jackson Shelburne, as he tossed a complete seven innings while striking out a career high 11 batters with no walks on just 90 pitches en route to an 8-3 WSC victory. Chase Douglas and Quin McCafferty each slammed a two-run homer over the left field fence in a four-run first inning to aid in momentarily extending the Wildcat’s win streak to seven games.
However, the win streak came to an end in game two as the Beavers used a late rally to steal an 8-7 win. The Beavers got the scoring started in the second with an RBI double followed by benefitting off some Wildcat fielding miscues to lead 3-0 after two. The lead was extended to 5-0 after Michael Williamson smoked one to left field for a two-run blast.
WSC mounted a rally in the third. With runners on second and third, Douglas continued his hot hitting with an RBI double down the right field line scoring both runners. Max Heard then brought Douglas home to make it 5-3. A couple of batters later, with two on and two out, first baseman Kaden Young hit on well that carried just over the left field fence for a three-run homer to put the Wildcats in front 6-5.
After leaving many runners on, an insurance run eventually came home in the seventh from a McCafferty double gave WSC a two-run lead, but it quickly got overruled in the eighth. An RBI double and a throwing error by WSC allowed the Beavers to tie the game and in the ninth a go-ahead single my Oscar Pegg put Minot State in front for good.
Game one on Sunday was an offensive onslaught from WSC. The compiled 22 runs on 20 hits to demolish the Beavers 22-6. Eleven different Wildcats recorded a hit with six multi-hit performances, led by Cam Madsen who went 4-for-6 with three RBIs and two runs scored. Connor Hunt also had a perfect game at the plate, going 3-for-3 with four RBIs, drawing two walks and scoring three runs.
The series finale was a back-and-forth affair. WSC opened the scoring in the first courtesy of a Taylor Gill RBI single which scored Heard. The Beavers answered with two runs in the top of the second, to which the Wildcats answered with a run of their own off the bat of Madsen to score young and tie the game at two after two innings.
WSC retook the lead as Heard scored again, this time from a Young sac fly, but once again, the Beavers put up another two-spot in the fourth to retake the lead, then added to it with three runs in the sixth to take a 7-3 lead.
The Wildcats countered with two runs in the bottom half of the frame as Gill reached on a fielder’s choice, scoring Madsen and McCafferty pushed one across on a groundout that brought Heard home for the third time this contest. However, the final three innings were scoreless on both sides, leading the comeback effort to fall short in a 7-5 loss.
WSC is now tied for third in the conference standings with Minot State as well as four other teams with a 7-5 mark. The next series for WSC is a four-game road trip to Bismarck, North Dakota to take on the 11-10 University of Mary Marauders in a pair of doubleheaders on Thursday, March 27 and Friday, March 28.
