Box Score Having won six of their past eight games, the William Jewell baseball team was rolling heading into the Great Lakes Valley Conference postseason tournament, where in the opening round the Cardinals dominated the top seed from the East Division, Southern Indiana 12-4 on Thursday night. A game that was scheduled to be played at 5:00 p.m. central time did not start until 8:00 p.m. due to other games going long followed by a three hour rain delay. Nevertheless, the Cardinals move to 31-20 and more importantly into the winner's bracket of the double-elimination tournament.
After a quick first inning the Cardinals exploded for seven runs on five hits and five walks in the second to take a commanding 7-0 lead. The inning did not start so well as Jewell nearly batted out of order but head coach
Mike Stockton was quick to get things corrected as
Tanner Foerschler stepped in the box and drew a leadoff walk.
Jesse Gray followed with a single and a fielder's choice from
Mike Leeper but an errant throw allowed Foerschler to advance all the way to third.
Coleman Waheed walked before a single from
Drew Standifer plated the first Cardinal run while a second scored on an error by the USI left fielder.
Garrett McKinzie kept the line moving with a two-RBI double before
Andrew Miller busted the game open with his fifth home run of the year to put Jewell up 6-0 with just one out. Back-to-back walks to
Dane Erbst and
Dylan Christie put two on for Gray who singled through the right side to give Jewell their seventh run of the frame.
The Cardinals weren't finished however as they tacked on four more runs in the top of the sixth which was again kick started by Foerschler and Gray who led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Leeper and Waheed followed with consecutive walks before Standifer poked an infield single to first base to put Jewell up 9-0 with the bases loaded with no outs. McKinzie then recorded his third RBI of the night with a long single to left field followed by a sac fly from Miller to push the Cardinal advantage to 11-0.
Southern Indiana pushed a run across the board in the bottom of the seventh as Sam Griggs doubled before an error allowed Kyle Neimeier to score.
The Cardinals got that run back however in the bottom of the seventh as Standifer scored on a single to right field by Foerschler.
The Eagles put three runs up in the eighth but went down quietly in the ninth to give Jewell the 12-4 victory.
Senior
Austin Kretchmar was dominant on the hill going seven innings, allowing one earned run on five hits while striking out seven. Reliever
Chris Mancha allowed three earn runs on two hits in two-thirds of an inning while
Dylan Pollock worked one and one third frames and struck out two.
The Cardinals outhit USI 17-7, which tied a season high for the team, led by Gray's four. Standifer, McKinzie, Miller, Erbst, and Foerschler all also enjoyed multi-hit games. McKinzie and Miller led Jewell with three RBI a piece while Standifer, Foerschler, Leeper and Waheed each scored two runs. While the Cards did score 12 runs on the night the damage could have been much worse as they left 17 men on base over the nine inning contest.
The Cardinals move on in the winner's bracket to face Bellarmine on Friday evening at 5:00 p.m. The Knights topped No. 18 Quincy after scoring four runs in the top of the ninth inning to win 6-4 in the tournament's opening game. Tomorrow's contest can be seen live on the GLVC Sports Network as well as heard live with Jewell Director of Sports Broadcasting Rick College on the William Jewell College Sports Network (WJCSN).
