Pride produce pair of comeback victories to close regular season with series win over Peru State

PERU, Neb. - Entering the day in no control of their postseason positioning, the Clarke University baseball team produced a pair of victories over Peru State College in Peru, Neb. on Saturday afternoon by 8-5 and 6-2 final scores to earn a series win.

Both contests had the Bobcats leading early as PSC took a 2-0 lead within the first two innings in each game but in the day's opener, they were able to extend that lead to 4-0 heading into the sixth inning.

In the top of the sixth, the Pride got a pair of runners on with two outs when they started to do their offensive damage starting with a Cole Swartz RBI single before Brady Lord and Darin Eales produced run scoring hits of their own with Lord singling up the middle ahead of an Eales game-tying double down the left field line to tie the game by scoring Swartz and Lord.

Starting pitcher Travis Gibson was able to produce a pair of scoreless frames in the bottom of the sixth and seventh innings and force the game into extra innings where Lord and Eales would once again deliver the biggest swings of the inning as Lord doubled to left center to break the 4-4 tie and give CU their first lead of the game then Eales singled home both Swartz and Lord again to extend that lead to 7-4 before stealing third and scoring on a throwing error to make it 8-4.

The top four in the order of Swartz, Lord, Eales, and cleanup hitter Jaxon Brooks all had multi-hit games with Swartz, Lord, and Brooks all having two-hit games while Eales went 4-for-5 with four runs driven in and a run scored.

Gibson completed his outing into the eighth to pick up the win for the extra innings complete game allowing five runs, three earned, on six hits with no walks and striking out two Bobcat hitters for his fourth pitching win of the season.

The pitching continued to be a story for Clarke in the series finale as they threw a bullpen game that was started by Zach Arnold as the sophomore left hander gave up two runs on two hits in the bottom of the first, but his second inning then the five other pitchers covering the third through seventh innings only gave up one more hit, one walk, and a hit batter over the rest of the game to shut down the home team after the first inning.

That staff consisted of an inning apiece from Curtis Anderson, Hayden Vickroy, Franklin Vasquez, Angel Alfaro, and Tommy Rimoldi as head coach Brian McCabe and pitching coach Anthony Ruden used a similar combination of relievers in their 18-15 comeback win over St. Ambrose earlier in the week to similar results. 

Again needing to overcome an early 2-0 hole, the Pride got their offense going in the second inning this time when Ethan Hefel blasted a two-run home run for his fourth long ball of the season, tying the game at 2-2.

Eli Kelley gave Clarke the lead in the top of the third with an RBI single to left center that scored Lord then the fifth inning gave CU some insurance runs with Lord producing another RBI double ahead of a Brooks sacrifice fly and a Hefel RBI single for the senior first baseman to finish the game 2-for-3 with three RBIs.

Hefel, Lord, and Swartz all had two-hit games in the regular season finale with Kelley and Jagger Rafkin producing the other two hits in the game for the visitors to close out the regular season with a doubleheader sweep and solidify their second-best record in the Heart North, finishing 17-7 in conference.

With that standing in the Heart North, the Pride will head into the Heart Tournament at the No. 4 seed as they will head to Ozark, Mo. next week to face a familiar foe in that tournament in the form of MidAmerica Nazarene University in the first round on Thursday, Apr. 30 with a 1:30 p.m. CT scheduled first pitch.