St. Norbert Splits Two Games to Open MWC Tournament

From Sports Information Director, May 13, 2016 | Baseball
by Dan Lukes, dan.lukes@snc.edu, (920) 403-4077

DE PERE - St. Norbert College split its first two games on the first day of the Midwest Conference Tournament, beating Cornell College 12-2 before losing a 4-3 heartbreaker in 11 innings to Beloit College at Larry Van Alstine Field at Mel Nicks Sports Complex.

The Green Knights (20-16) face Grinnell College at 10 a.m. Saturday in an elimination game. The winner would have to beat Beloit twice starting at 1 p.m. to steal the league championship.

St. Norbert and Beloit locked up in a hard-fought game in the winners' bracket, taking a 2-2 score to extra innings. The Green Knights scored in the top of the tenth inning when Sean Grant's two-out single brought home Hunter Larson. Beloit countered with a clutch two-out hit of its own by Zach Kolasinski to score Adrian Peil in the bottom of the inning to retie the score at 3-3.

The Green Knights didn't score in the top of the 11th inning, while Ryan Kaveney's two-out single to center field scored Joey Casa with the game-winning run in the bottom of the frame.

St. Norbert had a 2-0 lead scoring single runs in the second and third innings. Robbie Dombrowski had an RBI single in the second and Adam Enwiya followed with one of his own in the third inning.

Beloit would tie the game with two two-out hits in the bottom of the seventh inning on a double by Brice Call and a single by Kam Sallee.

Grant was 3-for-5 for St. Norbert, while Dombrowski and Larson were both 2-for-5. Jake McMahon took the loss in relief, allowing three hits in 3 1/3 innings.

St. Norbert blew out Cornell in the opener, scoring in five of its sixth at-bats.

Tyler Banovich had a sacrifice fly in the first inning to five the Green Knights a lead. Jason Malkowski had an RBI double, Dombrowski a run-scoring groundout and Griffin Jack a sacrifice fly in a three-run second inning.

Cornell scored twice in the top of the third but the Green KNights got those runs back in the bottom of the inning when Grant drove in a run on a grounder and Enwiya scored on a wild pitch.

St. Norbert broke the game open with two runs in the fifth inning on single by Enwiya and Malkowski, while the Green Knights scored four more times in the sixth inning - keyed by a two-run Enwiya double.

Enwiya and Malkowski were both 3-for-4 with three runs batted in. Banovich was 2-for-2 with three runs scored, while Tyler Brown was 2-for-3.

McMahon got the win, allowing nine hits with two strikeouts.