(Utica, MI) Concordia Baseball traveled to Jimmy John's Field in Utica, Michigan to take on the Blue Devils of Lawrence Tech. CUAA came in looking for their 40th win of the season, and they were able to do that and more. The Cardinals won game one 4-0 before a big 11-4 victory in game two. The two wins put Concordia at a 41-9 record to finish the regular season. This is just the second time in program history that the team finished with single digit losses after the completion of the regular season. They now have also finished with 40 or more wins in four straight seasons, and are sitting with a top-ten record in the NAIA this season after 50 games.
Game 1: Concordia 4 - Lawrence Tech 0
Drew Murphy started on the mound for the Cardinals in game one and absolutely dominated. The senior went all seven innings and only allowed 4 hits, while shutting the Blue Devils down and held them scoreless the entire game. Impressively, all 21 outs came from a ball in play as Lawrence Tech did not strike out one. The Cardinal defense came to play in game one and had Drew Murphy's back.
Clayton McKinstry and Harrison Ryan started the second inning with walks, and after stealing a base to move up, Tyler Lawson brought McKinstry home on an RBI groundout to break the scoreless tie. The next batter Justin Kozlowski then brought home Ryan on a sac fly to make the score 2-0. Josh Burke hit a big home run in the third inning to give the Cardinal defense and Murphy some room to work with. The next few innings were a pitchers duel until pinch runner Garrett Williams came in and scored on a big passed ball to make the score 4-0. Murphy would close things out in the bottom of the seventh to earn the first complete game shutout of his Cardinal career.
Game 2: Concordia 11 - Lawrence Tech 4
The Blue Devils broke their scoreless streak early in the game as they put up three runs in the first inning. The Cardinals would respond quickly as Harrison Ryan would hit an RBI single up the middle to score Clayton McKinstry. In the third inning Josh Burke would hit another home run to make the score 2-3. The fourth inning saw Jake Kuhlman come through with a huge two-run home run to score himself and Harrison Ryan to give Concordia their first lead of game two.
An error in the bottom of the fourth allowed a Blue Devil run to score, which would knot the game at four a piece. Dylan Kints was able to put in four innings of work for CUAA, and did not give up an earned run in that time. In the fifth inning Harrison Ryan was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to score Gus Simon and give the Cardinals back the lead. Justin Kozlowski then followed that up with a big two-out, two-strike, two-RBI single to score McKinstry and Logan Hylek. This put the score at 7-4 after five innings. Ryan VanSlambrouck and Logan Morris combined for the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings and went scoreless through them. In the meantime, in each inning a Cardinal run came across. The sixth inning saw Harrison Ryan bring home Gus Simon. The seventh inning saw Josh Burke bring home Jake Kuhlman. The eighth inning saw Tyler Lawson single home Mckinstry.
In the final frame, Alex Czyzewski scored on a wild pitch to make the score 11-4. Senior Brad Oltersdorf came on to start the ninth inning, and got batters he faced out. He then passed the ball to senior Marcus Bugeja. Marcus struck out the last batter of the game to keep CUAA at the single digit loss mark at the conclusion of their regular season.
The Cardinals are back in action on Wednesday for round one of the WHAC Tournament in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They await games to finish today in order to see who they will be playing at one time and where. They have officially clinched the number two seed in the tournament.
