Concordia University (28-11-1) fell 14-12 to Wayne State (36-13-1) in the second round of the NSIC baseball tournament on Friday afternoon in Wayne, Nebraska in a wild back and forth game that went 11 innings.
In the bottom of the eighth inning,
Andy Judkins stepped up and drilled a two-run home run to give Concordia an 8-6 lead heading into the ninth inning.
In the top of the ninth,
Ted Farni got the first two outs but the inning stayed alive for WSC with a costly two out error. Following the error, Farni hit two batters before the Wildcats would go on to score four unearned runs to take a 10-8 lead.
In the bottom of the ninth, Concordia stayed alive as
Galen Wetzell recorded an rbi single with runners on second and third, bringing up
Alex Kubal with runners on first and third and one out. Kubal successfully executed a suicide squeeze, scoring the tying run to send the game into extra innings with an 10-10 score.
In the tenth inning, the Wildcats continued their scoring onslaught as they tallied two more runs to take a 12-10 lead but the Golden Bears responded with two more in the bottom of the tenth to extend the game to the 11th inning.
But Wayne state continued to do the damage as they brought in two more runs and then finally closed the door on CU in the bottom of the 11th for a 14-12 final.
The first five batters in the order for the Bears went 12-24, scored 10 runs and had six rbi.
Bobby Meier and
Mason Reinhart each had three hit performances, Meier going 3-6 with two doubles and Reinhart going 3-4.
Alex Kubal went 2-6 in the nine spot and stole his 12th base of the season. Judkins' home run was his third of the year for the Golden Bears.
Eric Utoft started for Concordia and pitched five innings, allowing two runs on five hits with three walks and three strikeouts.
Ryan Fixell took the loss as he threw 2.1 innings and allowed four runs on five hits with one walk. Fixell falls to 2-2 on the year.
The Golden Bears are still alive in the double-elimination tournament and will take on the fourth seeded Southwest Minnesota State Mustangs at 12:00 tomorrow in Wayne, Nebraska. Should the bears defeat SMSU, they would then take on Wayne State again 30 minutes after the conclusion of their game against the Mustangs.
