Pride baseball's weekend wraps with pair of defeats to No. 16 Concordia

LINCOLN, Neb. - Closing out a four-game weekend against the No. 16 team in the NAIA preseason rankings, the Clarke University baseball team was unable to pull out any wins in Sunday's doubleheader against Concordia University Nebraska in 7-0 and 13-1 losses in Lincoln, Neb.

The Pride bats were held in check over the 14 total innings as they were only able to record five total hits with the lone run over the two contests coming from a Darin Eales solo home run as the senior shortstop went deep in game two's fourth inning to make it a 3-1 game at the time for his first long ball of the season.

Both starting pitchers for CU put up solid efforts on the mound starting with David Jacobo going 4.2 innings in game three to allow three runs, two earned, on five hits with five strikeouts but two of those five hits allowed left the yard by way of solo home runs in the first and fourth innings.

Travis Gibson got the start for game four and was able to pitch into the sixth inning at that 3-1 deficit, but the wheels came off a bit for the Bulldogs to score 10 runs in the bottom of the sixth off of three combined pitchers to force their second run rule win in as many days with Gibson's final line coming it at 5.0 innings with five runs allowed, four earned, on three hits and a walk while striking out four CUNE batters.

Outside of Eales, the Clarke batters to record a hit on Sunday included Brady Lord and Tommy Rimoldi in the finale along with Cole Swartz and Teddy Estudillo producing the lone two hits in game three to start the action on Sunday.

Pride baseball will be back in action next weekend when they travel to Fayette, Mo. for a pair of non-conference games against fellow Heart program Central Methodist University on Saturday, Feb. 21 before facing off against Concordia Nebraska again for two more on Sunday, Feb. 22 with each day's doubleheader slated to start at 12:00 p.m. CT.