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Box Score 2 Florence, Ky. – The Transylvania baseball team split a Saturday afternoon doubleheader with the Mount St. Joseph University Lions, winning 16-6 in the opener before falling to the Lions, 11-3 in the second game at UC Health Stadium.
The Pioneers expanded their win streak to seven games with the game one win before the Lions struck back in the closer, drawing the Pioneers' record to 8-3 and the Lions' ledger to 6-8.
Behind another stellar outing from Jake Schmidt on the mound, the Pioneers exploded for 18 hits in the opener to blow out the Lions for the 10-run victory. Transy built a 6-0 lead after five innings before the Lions used a five-run seventh inning to slice the lead to two runs; the Pioneers put all doubt to rest with a powerful eight-run ninth inning to win by 10.
Schmidt struck out 10 Lion batters over six innings while allowing two walks, four hits, and no earned runs. The senior improved his record to 3-0 on the season as he matched his career high in strikeouts.
While Schmidt shut down the Mount St. Joseph threat, the Pioneers began putting runs on the scoreboard in the third as Trent Pahl, Trent Youngblood, and Riley Willbur all provided consecutive one-out base hits with Willbur scoring Pahl. Hudson Chastain followed with a single to left field to score Youngblood and Willbur, putting the Pioneers ahead for good at 3-0.
Behind more steady hitting and Lions fielding miscues, the Pioneers increased their lead to 5-0 in the fourth inning and tacked on another run in the fifth on an RBI by Nick Wade. Trent Pahl blasted a two-run home run in the top of the sixth inning, marking the fourth consecutive inning the Pioneers plated a run in crafting an 8-0 advantage.
Trailing 8-1 in the bottom of the seventh, Mount St. Joseph found success against the Pioneer relievers with a five-run output, but Jared Leuthart retired the side in the eighth before Transylvania assembled a sufficient amount of insurance runs in the following inning.
In the top of the ninth, the first eight batters of the inning reached base for the Pioneers; by the time leadoff hitter Riley Willbur batted for the second time in the inning after his lead-off double, the Pioneers had assembled a 14-6 lead.
Willbur's second at-bat of the ninth inning resulted in an RBI groundout to score Andrew Winningham. The Pioneers added two more runs in the inning on consecutive bases-loaded walks drawn by Michael Blair and Wade Lopiccolo.
Willbur, Chastain, and Lopiccolo each tallied three hits in game one with Willbur and Lopiccolo both registering a double and a stolen base. Pahl went 2 for 4 on the day with three RBI and a walk in addition to his home run.
Mount St. Joseph evened the tally in the second game of the afternoon, racking up 14 hits to Transy's 11. Each team scored one run apiece in innings one and three as the game carried a 2-2 score into the top of the fourth inning.
The Lions took their first lead of the day in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI single and two more runs brought across via a Transylvania error for a 5-2 advantage. Lopiccolo drove a deep drive to left field for a solo home run in the top of the fifth, cutting the deficit to 5-3. The Lions answered once more with one run in the bottom of the fifth and two in the bottom of the sixth, asserting an 8-3 lead. Mount St. Joseph put the game out of reach with a three-run eighth inning to even up the afternoon.
Youngblood, Lopiccolo, and Nick Wade each amassed two hits in game two while Willbur smacked his fourth home run of the season. Starter Devon Hart took the game two loss, going 5.1 innings and yielding nine hits, two walks, and ringing up five Lion hitters. Matt Armstrong tallied three strikeouts on the mound while reliever Max Medley allowed no earned runs in 1.2 innings of work.
Transylvania is next scheduled to play on Friday, April 2 against the Hanover College Panthers in Lexington, Kentucky. The single-game contest is scheduled for a 7:00 p.m. start from Legends Ballpark.
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