MISHAWAKA, Ind. - Grace's baseball team picked up two important victories against rival Bethel on Wednesday afternoon. With a berth in the conference tournament up for grabs, the Lancers remain in the driver's seat by taking the first two games of the series, 5-4 and 4-3.
In the opener,
Matt Friesema belted a home run to get the Lancers on the board right away in the top of the first.
Bethel tied the game an inning later and the game would remain deadlocked until the sixth inning.
Grace manufactured a run with a little bit of help to move ahead by one.
Maximo De Leon walked and advanced to third after a throwing error on his stolen base attempt. Friesema picked up his second RBI of the game with a single.
Grant Hartley tacked on an insurance run with a solo blast to lead off the seventh inning. That home run broke the single-season record, marking his 12th of the season.
De Leon legged out a triple with two outs in the eighth, allowing Friesema to bring him home with another RBI single.
The Lancers scored for the fourth consecutive inning in their last at bat. Hartley singled to start the inning.
Keenan LeBlanc came on as a pinch runner and forced the Pilots into another miscue to get over to third base.
Cayden Calloway followed with an RBI single to make it 5-3.
That run would be the difference as Bethel scored one in the bottom of the ninth before the bullpen closed the door to preserve the one-run victory.
Owen Kirchenstein,
Kyle Showley and
Sam Justice each pitched 3.0 innings on the mound and combined for eight strikeouts on the day.
Friesema finished the game 3 for 4 with three RBIs and a run. Hartley went 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run. Calloway had two hits and one RBI.
The nightcap was a one-run game as well.
Evan Etchison went the distance on the mound to bring home the 4-3 win.
The game went into the third inning as a 0-0 draw before Grace strung together three hits in a row to score three runs.
De Leon doubled and Friesema singled to chase him home.
Austin Carr followed with a big fly to pick up two RBIs. The second RBI of his at-bat was a record-setting one as Carr became the all-time leader for career RBIs in program history.
The Pilots clawed a run back in the bottom half, but
Sean Gannon's RBI single in the next inning put the lead back to three. The Lancers loaded the bases later in the inning, but couldn't push another run across the plate.
Bethel made things interesting over the final two innings to get within a run in the bottom of the seventh. Etchison, however, was able to end the rally, getting a strikeout to end the game for his sixth win of the season. He fanned seven batters in his complete-game outing.
Gannon went 2 for 3 with an RBI. Four others had one hit and one run with Carr adding two RBIs in the game.
Grace heads into the final two games of the regular season with one foot in the conference tournament field. One Grace win or one Goshen loss and the Lancers will lock up the final spot.
The Lancers return to Bethel to complete the four-game series tomorrow at 1 p.m.
