MONTGOMERY, Ill. – Aurora University scored 10 runs over its final three at bats of the second game to complete a sweep of a doubleheader against the Lakeland University baseball team Friday afternoon.
The Spartans won the second game 11-4 to wrap up a day that also included a 12-1 win in seven innings in the teams' first game. The results left the Muskies still searching for their first win of the season at 0-15 overall and 0-6 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference.
Aurora (16-2 overall, 6-0 NACC) entered the game ranked 15th in the latest D3baseball.com top 25 poll and 16th in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper NCAA Division III poll, and the Spartans displayed their powerful offense, especially as the games went on. Aurora scored nine runs over innings 4-5-6 in the first game, and blew open the second game with six runs in the sixth inning and four more in the eighth.
Freshman
Anthony Yust (
Kenosha, Wis.) pitched well in the start in game two, holding the powerful Spartans scoreless through four innings and to just one run through five. Trouble started in the sixth, though, when the leadoff hitter reached on an error, and Aurora would put its first seven batters on. The Spartans would score six times off a total of four Muskies pitchers in the inning.
Lakeland would answer with two runs in the seventh when
Tyler LaMack (
Sr.-Pewaukee, Wis.) hit a two-out, two-run double to score
Zak Keegan (
So.-Frankfort, Ill.) and
Kellen Hodges (
Jr.-Littleton, Colo.). LaMack also would add an RBI groundout to score Keegan again in the ninth, and
Griffin Robinson (
So.-Pike Road, Ala.) added a solo home run for his first homer of the season.
Robinson and Hodges both had two hits in the second game. Yust took the loss, allowing three hits and four runs (two earned) in five-plus innings.
Aurora scored twice in the first inning of the opening game, and began pulling away with three runs in the fourth to take a 6-0 lead. The Muskies got on the board in the fifth with a run-scoring single by
Chris Day (
Fr.-Victorville, Calif.) to score Hodges, but the Spartans answered with four in the bottom of the fifth and then two in the sixth to be in position to end the game on account of the 10-run rule after seven innings.
Lakeland tries again to play its first home of the season when it hosts Concordia University Chicago tomorrow at noon.
