WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – The Concordia Golden Bears baseball team (2-4) dropped a Sunday afternoon contest at Chain O' Lakes Stadium to Lewis (2-5) by a score of 4-1 to drop to 1-1 in the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational.
The Golden Bears, who entered the game averaging 9.0 runs per game on the season, saw their bats go cold as they were held to one run on four hits on the day. Thimsen collected two of those hits as he added a stolen base in the loss.
Jack Young and
Jarod Wandersee each reached safely twice as well with both collecting a single and a walk while Young chipped in a steal.
On the mound,
Jonah Lewis (0-2),
Wyatt Rudolf and
Reece Piontek combined to allow just seven hits while walking two and striking out eight in the contest. Lewis got the start and took the loss as he allowed three runs on three hits to go along with five strikeouts in his 4.0 innings of work.
Wyatt Rudolf provided solid relief with 4.0 innings of one-run ball, allowing four hits and no walks and grabbing a pair of strikeouts to keep CSP in the game. Piontek finished it off with a 1-2-3 ninth, tallying a strikeout.
Anthony Sorrentino worked 4.0 scoreless frames in a no decision for the Flyers, striking out five and walking none in the start. Ben Davis (1-2) and Matt Helwig combined for 5.0 hitless innings as Davis allowed one run and picked up the win in 1.2 innings of relief while Helwig earned the save with 3.1 perfect innings and five strikeouts.
After a pair of scoreless innings, Lewis opened the scoring in the top of the third as Julian Everett doubled home a run before coming around to score on a wild pitch. Cherokee Lebeau added an RBI single to bring it to 3-0 heading to the bottom of the third. Lebeau added another run-scoring single in the fifth to round out the scoring for the Flyers.
After seeing a bases loaded rally stifled by an inning-ending double play in the bottom of the fifth,
Bryce Nelson broke up the shutout in the CSP half of the sixth as he drove in
Matt Pietsch, who led off the frame with a walk, on a sacrifice fly to deep left field. A walk to Young and a wild pitch put two in scoring position, but a foul out to the third baseman ended the threat. From there, CSP was retired in order over the final three innings.
CSP continues play tomorrow with a pair of games as they face Malone at 9:30 a.m. and Minnesota State at 5 p.m. All game times listed are in central time.
