McPherson, Kan.- The Tiger Baseball team took on the Southwestern Christian Univesity Eagles this past weekend, the games were scheduled to be at the Eagles home field but a poor weather forecast down there forced the series to be moved up to McPherson. The Tigers served as the away team in the series as scheduled despite hosting the series on their home field.
Game 1 served as the single 9 inning game of the series and the Eagles jumped on the Tigers right away, scoring 4 in the 1st on a 2 out grand slam. The two teams traded 2 run homers in the 3rd off the bats of
Kurt Ippolito for the Tigers and Dario Paredes for the Eagles.
Gary Ford hit a solo shot in the 4th to cut the deficit to 6-3 as
Justin Evasovic settled in on the mound for the Tigers getting through the 6th without allowing anymore runs to score. The Tigers cut the deficit to 6-5 in the 8th on a
Nico Lopez 2 RBI double and then held the Eagles in the bottom half of the inning. In the 9th the Tigers threatened a bit but could not find the equalizer as they dropped the series opener to the Eagles 6-5
In game 2 the next day the Tigers turned to
Nick Julian on the mound to even up the series, no runs were scored by either team until the Eagles struck first on an unearned run in the 4th. The Tigers answered in the 5th with
Kurt Ippolito's second 2 run homer of the series to take a 2-1 lead. the Eagles tied things back up in the bottom half but the Tigers again answered back in the 6th with a run coming across on an wild pitch and on a sacrifice fly from
Kurt Ippolito, his 3rd RBI of the game. In the 7th, Julian remained on the mound looking to finish out the game up 4-2, a run would come across with 2 outs on an RBI double but Julian was able to bare down and get that final out as the Tigers hung on for a 4-3 win. This win would clinch the Tigers a spot in the SAC Tournament for the first time in program history.
The rubber match in the series was now important for the Tigers for positioning in the standings as a win could separate themselves from 5th by 1 game more and even jump into 3rd. The result was the best overall performance of the series for the Tigers, holding the Eagles to 2 runs thanks to strong outings from
Samir Gonzalez and Nick Clayson while exploding for 9 runs on offense.
Kurt Ippolito hit his third 2 run homer of the series while also earning and RBI single and then an RBI double late in the.
Braedon Ulrich and
Derex Cancel each had 2 RBI doubles in the 5th to propel the Tigers to a dominant 9-2 win and their 5th straight series win.
The Tigers are now 18-18 (13-8) on the season and are currently in 3rd place in the SAC standings as they roll into a midweek contest against Hesston College tomorrow at 1pm before their biggest test but also biggest opportunity of the season against the 1st place Texas Wesleyan University Rams at home this weekend.
