WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (4-7) played a pair of nine-inning games on day two of their spring trip on Thursday, defeating Davis & Elkins College (W. Va.) (2-9) 8-2 and falling to Malone (Ohio) (8-1) 11-6 at Chain of Lakes Park.

GAME ONE: CSP 8, Davis & Elkins 2
Making his first career start in just his third-ever appearance at CSP, redshirt freshman Lou Walker pitched effectively, earning the win after allowing seven hits and two earned runs with a 3-3 walk-to-strikeout ratio in six full innings of work. Senior Caden Carsen secured the first save of his career for Concordia, pitching three innings of relief and allowing just a single hit with two walks and three strikeouts.

Sophomore right fielder Eric Berg, who knocked in a team-high three runs in the game, got the scoring started right away in the first with a sacrifice fly that plated Kaden Johnson.

After the Senators tied the game with a run in the second inning, CSP regained control with a 2-1 lead when Jack Setterlund reached home on a throwing error by the Davis & Elkins catcher. Berg added to the lead shortly after, doubling to left center to bring both Johnson and Charlie Harms around to score.

The Senators used a run in the third to cut the deficit to two runs at 4-2, but Concordia answered in the next inning with RBI singles from both Harms and Blake Eckmann to take a 6-2 lead.

Sacrifice flies from Johnson in the seventh and Eckmann in the eighth proved to be the last of the scoring in the game as CSP secured the comfortable 8-2 victory. Johnson finished the game 3-4 at the plate with a double and an RBI, and Eckmann went 2-2 with two RBI.

As a unit, the Concordia offense managed 11 hits in the game, tied for their second-most in an outing so far this season. 

GAME TWO: MALONE 11, CSP 6
The Golden Bear offense carried momentum into the early portion of game two, with Harms and Berg both notching RBI to put Concordia up 2-0 in the top of the first.

The Pioneers took control of the game in the following innings, scoring two in the first, six in the second, and one each in the third and fourth to carve out a 10-2 lead. Concordia got one run closer in the sixth when redshirt freshman Hawken Hedlund smacked a double, just the second extra-base hit of his young career, to score Nick Carlson.

The weather turned in a flash at that point, with the game entering a lighting/rain delay lasting 1:28 in the top of the seventh inning. When the game resumed, nearly four hours had passed since the first pitch.

Concordia inched closer with one run each in the seventh and eighth on RBI from a pair of freshman in Max Kaplan and Tate Gage, but Malone added what proved to be the game's final run in the bottom of the eighth to take an 11-6 lead that would hold for the remainder of the contest.

Making just the third relief appearance of his career, freshman Ryley Wuebkers was humming along on the mound for Concordia before being interrupted by the weather delay, allowing a single hit with one walk against three strikeouts in 2.1 innings of work.

The Bears finished the game with nine total hits to Malone's 11, with Kaplan posting CSP's only multi-hit performance after going 2-4 at the plate. 

The Golden Bears will continue their weeklong Florida trip on Friday as they are set to begin a four-game series with Jamestown, the first three of which are NSIC contests, with a single game at Northeast Regional Park.