William Penn Drops Conference Openers
Springfield, Mo.—The Statesmen began their quest of defending their 2019 Heart of America Athletic Conference regular-season championship with a doubleheader against Evangel on Friday.
William Penn (9-7, 0-2 Heart) dropped both of the conference-opening games to the Crusaders (9-5, 2-0 Heart) as they couldn’t shut the door in game one and couldn’t complete a heroic comeback attempt in game two.
WPU 5, EU 6
Chase Stratton (Sr., Clearfield, Utah, Sports Management) got the call for game one of the double-dip and did everything he could to give his squad an opportunity to win. The senior went six innings, allowing three earned runs while striking out five. Stratton left the game leading 5-2 but the bullpen was unable to hold down the fort as the pesky Crusaders managed to find a way to score four runs in the bottom of the seventh to walk it off.
WPU got on the board in the fourth inning as Jameson Hart (Jr., Sarnia, Ontario, Sports Management) singled home Alex Fisher (Jr., Sydney, Aus., Biology) after he led off the inning with a double. After tying the game at 2-2 in the sixth, William Penn plated four in the top of the seventh highlighted by a Hart single that scored Jaylan Jones (So., Ottumwa, Iowa, Sociology) cleanly and then Adrian Garcia (Sr., Ontario, Calif., Mechanical Engineering) on an error by the third basemen.
Hart spearheaded the offensive effort as he collected two hits in three at-bats and a pair of RBIs.
WPU 5, EU 7
It didn’t take the offense quite as long to get going in game two as WPU got on the board in the top of the first courtesy of a RBI groundout off the bat of Fisher that scored Garcia. Evangel countered with three runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning to take a 3-1 lead. After the Crusaders tacked on a pair in the fourth, WPU was staring at a 5-1 deficit but managed to claw its way back in scratching for one in the fifth and then three in the sixth highlighted by back-to-back RBI singles for Soren Graversen (Jr., Calgary, Alberta, Human Services) and Snaider Torrealba (Sr., Barquisimeto, Ven., Sports Management) to tie it up at 5-5. The late game heroics continued for the Crusaders as they were able to put up a pair in the bottom of the sixth then quiet the Statesmen bats in the seventh to pull out the victory.
Jake Vernon (Sr., Elkhart, Ind., Interdisciplinary Studies) and Torreabla both logged multi-hit outings each going 2-4. Fisher added a pair of RBIs and a hit in the setback as well.
Lionel Colon (Sr., Vieques, P.R., Business Management) threw all six innings for the navy and gold in game two, surrendering six earned runs while striking out three.
Next Up: William Penn will travel to Olathe, Kansas to take on MidAmerica Nazarene in a doubleheader on Saturday.
