St. Norbert and Ripon Split Opening Doubleheader of Series

From Sports Information Director, May 3, 2008 | Baseball
by Dan Lukes, dan.lukes@snc.edu, (920) 403-4077

DE PERE - St. Norbert College and Ripon College split its opening doubleheader of a four-game series in Midwest Conference action at Mel Nicks Field.

The Red Hawks took the opener 3-2 before St. Norbert bounced back to take the nightcap 7-0. The Green Knights need to sweep Ripon in Sunday's doubleheader in Ripon to win the MWC North Division championship.

St. Norbert (22-9, 11-3 MWC) almost pulled out the opener despite trailing 3-1 entering the bottom of the ninth. St. Norbert loaded the bases on an error, a Mike Wallerich single and a Cory Fuller walk. After an infield popout, Tony Jandron scored on a wild pitch. Ripon pitcher Mike Lloyd bore down however and got two strikeouts to preserve the victory.

St. Norbert scored its only other run in the fourth inning when Ryan Gusick singled in Jared Yost. Mac Schumann had RBI singles in the third and fifth for Ripon's first two runs, while Paul Henrickson had an infield single with the bases loaded and two out in the seventh for the other.

Lloyd allowed nine hits with two walks and five strikeouts for the win. Tony Jandron took the loss, working seven innings and allowing six hits, seven walks and four strikeouts.

Adam Frost and Gusick were both 2-for-4 for St. Norbert, while Schumann was 2-for-4 for the Red Hawks (25-6, 12-2).

Brett Yost twirled a complete-game shutout in the nightcap, scattering six singles with four strikeouts. Yost did not walk a batter and faced just 32 batters in the game.

St. Norbert broke the game open with five runs in the second inning. Jared Yost's RBI single scored Wallerich. Brett Birkholz had a sacrifice fly to plate Fuller. Frost then doubled in Yost and Bryan Stoppenbach and Alex Byrne's single brought home Frost.

The Green Knights added two runs in the fourth. Byrne led off the inning with a walk and advanced on a Jandron single. Byrne moved up to third on a fly ball to centerfield, and Fuller's ground ball to third scored Byrne. Jared Yost's hard smash to third ended up past the infielder and brought around Jandron to score.

Ripon had just one runner advance past third base in the game and did not have an extra-base hit in the doubleheader.

Byrne was 2-for-4 in the nightcap for the Green Knights' lone multi-hit game of the contest. Frost, Jandron and Jared Yost did extend their consecutive-game hitting streaks all to 20 each.