The William Jewell baseball team opened Great Lakes Valley Conference play with a split with Rockhurst Friday afternoon at Talley Stadium in Liberty, Mo. The games were originally scheduled to be played at RU but due to construction the games were moved to Liberty and the Cardinals played both games as the visitors. Jewell won the opener by scores of 10-2 followed by a 2-1 loss.

In the opener, Jewell went to work early as Garrett McKenzie doubled with one out, followed by a walk to Andrew Miller, and Dane Erbst being plunked by a pitch loaded the bases for Dylan Christie. Christie then drew a walk to force in McKinzie giving Jewell a very quick 1-0 lead. Matej Sucha then came up with a two-run single to put the Cardinals up 3-0 after a half inning.

The Cardinals added another in the second as Erbst grabbed a sacrifice fly to left field to push the lead to 4-0 after two complete.

The Cardinals threatened again in the fourth as they loaded the bases but were unable to plate any runs. However, in the top of the following frame, Standfier blasted a two-run home run to right center to give the Cardinals a six run lead.

Jewell then pushed the margin to eight after Tyler Carpenter tripled to left center in the sixth.

After a spectacular opening five innings Austin Kretchmar struggled a bit in the bottom of the sixth inning as a walk, hit batter, and single loaded the bases. Joey Mancuso drew a walk to force in a run and get RU on the board. Kretchmar battled back to strike out two to end the threat.

The Hawks put together a small rally in the bottom of the ninth scoring one run

Kretchmar breezed fairly easily through seven solid innings, allowing just one earned run on three hits, while striking out eight. Dalton Gulick also posted a strong inning with two strikeouts while Derek Thurman closed out the game allowing one earned run.

Andrew Miller led the Cardinal offense with three hits as Jewell outhit the Hawks 10-6. The Cards also took advantage of multiple free bases give up by the RU pitching staff who allowed six walks and hit six batters.

In the nightcap, it was the Hawks who drew first blood with a run in the bottom of the fourth after stringing three hits together to take a 1-0 advantage. RU added another in the fifth before Jewell got things moving against the Rockhurst starter Henry Weiler.

Drew Standifer reached base on an error by the second baseman and advanced to third on a double from Andrew Miller. Standifer then scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead in half at 2-1.

In the top of the seventh Dylan Christie nearly tied the game with a long fly out that was caught by the Rockhurst right fielder standing up against the wall, but the inning ended with three consecutive groundouts.

Billy Kirkpatrick took his first loss of the year, falling to 3-1. Kirkpatrick allowed two earned runs on ten hits while striking out four.

The Cardinals were outhit 10-2 with Miller and Zach Saalfeld (double) each posting one.