ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (17-27, 11-21 NSIC) saw a late game two lead slip away against Winona State 15-21, 13-12 NSIC) on Friday afternoon as the Golden Bears dropped game one 11-2 and game two 7-5 in 10 innings at Barnes Field.
 
GAME ONE: Winona State 11, Concordia-St. Paul 2
After grabbing a 1-0 lead after two innings in the series opener, CSP saw WSU put up crooked numbers with four in the third and seven runs in the final three innings to pull away for a comfortable victory.
 
Winona State's duo of Kyle Gendron (3-1) and Caleb Strack combined to hold the Golden Bears to just one hit in the contest as Gendron picked up the win with 4.0 innings of one-run, one hit ball with a pair of strikeouts to pick up the win while Strack fired three hitless innings, allowing an unearned run to go along with three strikeouts to pick up his first save of the season.
 
Senior Luke DeGrammont (4-4) made his final start in navy and gold as the left-hander worked 6.0+ innings while striking out four in the loss. DeGrammont had a career year for CSP as he finished with a 4.33 ERA in a team-best 62.1 innings over 11 appearances, 10 starts, striking out 54 and allowing just 61 hits to tally a .250 opponent average. Gavin Rusch came on to finish it off, working the final 1.0, allowing one run on one hit with a walk.
 
JT Hoffmann collected the team's lone hit, an RBI single in the second to bring in Jaden Werner, who walked and stole a base in the game. Bryce Nelson added a walk and a run scored while Ryan Christopher, Mason Wolf and Brayden Roybal all drew walks as well.
 
GAME TWO: Winona State 7, Concordia-St. Paul 5 (10 inn.)
After a crucial bases-clearing pinch-hit double off the bat of Brayden Roybal gave Concordia a 5-3 lead heading to the ninth, the Warriors scratched across two runs in the inning to send it to extras before scoring two more in the tenth to secure the doubleheader sweep.
 
While hits were hard to come by in game one for the Golden Bears, they hammered out 15 hits, their highest total since April 3, in the game two defeat. Both teams left plenty of potential runs on the basepaths as CSP stranded 13 in the game while WSU also tallied 15 hits and stranded 14.
 
Three different players registered three-hit games for Concordia while two more chipped in multi-hit efforts. Matt Pietsch filled the box score, going 3-5 with a walk, a stolen base, a run scored and an RBI while Jack Young tallied three hits, including a double while Mason Nadolney tallied three singles.
 
JT Hoffmann chipped in two more hits, including his first homer of the season, a go-ahead solo shot in the fourth, as well as a stolen base and two runs scored. Nick Thimsen finished 2-5 with a double and a run scored as well.
 
Jonah Lewis was solid in the start, allowing just two earned runs on six hits while walking one and striking out five in his 5.2 innings of work in a no-decision. Matt Sherman added 1.1 scoreless frames to keep the Golden Bears in front. Alec Holcomb allowed a pair of runs in 1.2 innings of relief while Eric Lundell (1-1) took the loss, allowing two runs in 0.2 innings.
 
Dillon Whittaker, brother of former Golden Bear Roch Whittaker, allowed just one earned run while striking out five over 5.1 innings. Justin Firpo (3-1) collected the win as he worked 2.0 scoreless frames, walking none and striking out four.
 
Heading into the latter innings with Winona State clinging to a 3-2 edge with the bases loaded and two down in the home half of the seventh, pinch-hitter Brayden Roybal needed just one pitch to make his mark on the game. The left-handed hitter roped a liner in between the left and centerfielders to bring home all three runs to give Concordia a 5-3 advantage.
 
It held until the ninth when back-to-back one-out singles followed by a run-scoring double put the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on second for WSU. A sacrifice fly evened the score before Lundell came on to coax an inning-ending fly out.
 
Winona State was back at it in the 10^th as a single and a double with one down set up the game-winning hit, a single off the bat of Joshua Hawkford that allowed two runs to cross the plate.
 
That proved to be all the scoring as Firpo worked around a pair of singles in the bottom of the frame to secure the win.
 
Concordia closes out the season tomorrow on Senior Day as they host Winona State in game three of the series at noon.