auburndale, fla. - the concordia university baseball team (2-3) won their second straight game on friday afternoon on their spring trip with a 16-15 win over northwood (mich.) university (5-2) at lake myrtle park field 2. The golden bears trailed 15-5 entering the bottom of the sixth inning, but scored 11 unanswered runs including sophomore j.t. Schneider's (oak creek, wis.) rbi walk with the bases loaded to end the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. box score
concordia left handed pitcher/outfielder ty hall (spring lake park, minn.) picked up his second win in as many games as he moves to 2-0 on the season. Hall pitched the eighth and ninth innings in shutout fashion after playing right field for the first seven innings. He allowed just one hit and had one strikeout and leads concordia with a 1.42 era in three relief appearances over 6.1 innings on the season.
schneider's walk completed a four run bottom of the ninth inning as concordia still trailed 15-12 with just three outs remaining. They got a bonus as northwood committed an error as junior bryan lippincott (des moines, iowa) led off the inning by reaching safely on the muffed play.
lippincott had a big day at the plate, finishing 4-6 with four rbi, his third double of the year and three runs scored. He leads the team in hitting with a .435 average and seven rbi early in the year.
all of concordia's runs in the inning were scored with two outs, with redshirt freshman elliot powell (minnetonka, minn.) delivering a two run single with the bases loaded to start the scoring. Junior kris long (rochester, minn.) followed with an rbi single and finished the day 3-5 with a triple and a walk.
long's hit tied the game, and turned the lineup over to the top of the order with runners on first and third with two outs. Junior troy dubay (urbandale, iowa) drew a walk setting up schneider's game-winning rbi walk.
schneider was solid at the plate as well, going 2-5 with three runs, two walks and two rbi.
while schneider and lippincott were solid in the 2-3 spots in the order, concordia's clean-up and 5-spot were productive as well. Senior jon stockton (oakdale, minn.) went 1-3 with two walks and two rbi out of the clean-up spot and was followed by senior sam fagely (mahtomedi, minn.) who was 2-3 with a pair of runs and rbi and three walks. Both players had a steal as well.
but most importantly, all four hitters produced a double for a golden bear team that struggled to get extra base hits early on in their spring trip.
northwood, the visiting team in the game, struck first with a pair of runs off of starter ben lemke (jr., rhp, rosemount, minn.) in the top of the first. Only one was earned and he struck out a pair before exiting after the first inning.
concordia responded with a three-run bottom of the first to take the lead.
junior left hander cody wilcoxson (aurora, colo.) came on in relief of lemke in the second inning, got a strike out and after allowing back-to-back singles to the top of the order, was able to induce an inning ending double play.
wilcoxson surrendered the lead in the third inning by allowing three runs (two earned) but he punched out three batters to get out of the inning.
he worked an efficient fourth inning by pitching to contact and inducing ground outs.
trailing 5-3 heading into the bottom of the fourth, concordia picked up back-to-back rbi doubles by schneider and lippincott to tie the game up.
but wilcoxson couldn't hold it as northwood knocked him from the game and his two inherited runs each scored after he left to inflate what was otherwise a better long relief outing than the box score would indicate.
wilcoxson struck out four over 3.1 innings but allowed eight runs (seven earned) as he threw 68 pitches. He leads concordia with 10 strikeouts on the season in just 7.0 innings over three relief appearances.
he was relieved by sophomore right hander zach goodwin (mahtomedi, minn.) who was tagged for three runs and allowed both of wilcoxson's to score as well.
trailing 13-5, concordia turned deeper to their bullpen in the top of the sixth inning as freshman left hander t.j. Obermyer (sergeant bluff, iowa) came in for his debut. He allowed two runs in the sixth as the deficit widened to 15-5 but pitched a solid seventh inning as the offense came back.
concordia scored four in the sixth and three more in the seventh to bring the game back within three runs as the game moved into the eighth inning.
concordia brought in hall and his hot hand for the late innings and he kept northwood off the bases and the scoreboard.
in the bottom of the eighth, concordia went down 1-2-3 before rallying in the ninth for the win.
the victory for concordia counts as an "in-region" win and is even more important with northwood's strong start. They entered today 5-0 before a 9-1 loss to minnesota state in the morning and dropped a second straight game to the nsic with concordia's comeback win.
the golden bears conclude their spring trip tomorrow with a pair of seven inning games against nsic-member minnesota, crookston at lake myrtle park field 3 at 2:00 p.m. Central time. The games against umc are non-conference games, but will also count as "in-region."
