AUBURNDALE, Fla. –
Jake Hoadley (
Fr.-Stanardsville, Va.) delivered an RBI single with two outs in the top of the seventh inning to break a scoreless tie and give the Lakeland University baseball team a 1-0 win and a doubleheader split with Elms (Mass.) College Tuesday at the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational.
The Muskies and Blazers played a pair of low-scoring games, including Elms winning the opening game of the seven-inning twinbill 4-1. Lakeland continued to play above .500 on its season-opening spring break and is now 5-3 with three games left in Florida.
Hoadley's game-winning RBI came in a late rally in a pitcher's duel where offense was at a premium and only one runner for either team got as far as third base before the Muskies broke through.
Hunter Frisk (
Jr.-Manteca, Calif.) singled with one out in the seventh and
Collin Schutz (
Sr.-Saint Amant, La.) came on as a pinch runner and promptly stole second.
Jack Banks (
Sr.-Mountain View, Calif.) walked to put runners and first and second but
Kaylab Owings (
So.-Bagdad, Ariz.) struck out swinging for the second out.
Hoadley swung away on the first pitch he saw though and hit a single to left that scored Schutz, and that run would stand up when
Gio Ramirez (
Sr.-Chicago, Ill.) capped two quality pitching appearances for the day but closing the door in the seventh. Elms (2-4 record) put runners on first and second with one out, but Ramirez struck out Xander Karadimas looking and got George Chaya to fly out to center to end the game.
Ramirez earned the win, pitching three scoreless innings in relief with three strikeouts and combining with
Brody Fay (
Fr.-Surprise, Ariz.) on a three-hitter. The two teams combined for seven hits total and both teams turned two double plays, and the only runner getting past second in the first six innings was when Elms took advantage of two hit batsmen and a walk to load the bases in the bottom of the fourth before Fay struck out A.J. Cook swinging to end the Blazers' best threat.
Elms got the better of the Muskies in the first game with a pair of early two-run innings and a strong pitching performance from Austin Roy, who threw a complete game and allowed three hits with three strikeouts.
The Blazers scored first with a two-run single by Seamus Higgins in the second inning and added two unearned runs in the second inning, with an RBI single by Tyler Galenski and another run scoring on a two-out error. Lakeland scored its lone run in the fifth inning when
Tyler LaMack (
So.-Pewaukee, Wis.) doubled to lead off and Owings drove him in with a groundout to the right side.
LaMack finished with two of the Muskies' three hits in the opener with Frisk adding a single to also finish with a two-out day for the doubleheader.
Alex Mikula (
So.-Orland Park, Ill.) took the loss in the start allowing four runs in three innings before Ramirez came on and threw four scoreless innings, allowing two hits with four strikeouts.
Lakeland returns to the field again Wednesday to take on Rochester Institute of Technology for a single game at 8:15 a.m. Central time, 9:15 a.m. in Florida.
