Minneapolis, Minnesota — The Northwestern College baseball team dropped a doubleheader against Clarke (Iowa) Tuesday afternoon in the final games of a four-game series played at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minn. The Red Raiders are now 2-2 on the season; Clarke improves to 3-4.
Game One: 3-2 loss
Down 1-0 heading into their final at-bat, Northwestern broke through for two unearned runs in the top of seventh against Clarke starting pitcher, Jakob Kirman. Monday’s game two hero Colton Harold led off and reached on a Pride error and pinch runner Mason Porepp stole second to move into scoring position. Josh Fakkema drew a one-out walk and Noa Vogel was hit by a pitch to load the bases and Eli Rash tied the game with an RBI single up the middle, scoring Porepp. Sam Stanford came to the plate and hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring the go-ahed run in Fakkema.
Clarke came back with a pair of runs in the bottom of the seventh, all scored with two outs, off Luke Hughes (0-1). Bryce Simon hit a RBI double and came around to score the winning run on a single from Travis McFarland.
Kirman (1-0) picked up the win, giving up three hits in seven full innings, striking out six. Northwestern starter Brady Roberts was just as good, giving up three hits, one run and struck out seven in six innings.
Vogel, Rash and Gavin Lorenzen all recorded on hit each, all singles.
Game Two: 7-1 loss
Northwestern fell behind 6-0 after two innings leading to a 7-1 loss in the second game of the doubleheader. Clarke scored six runs off Raider starting pitcher Evan Olesen (0-1), who walked one and struck out one in two innings. Tavan Shahidi and Noah Hoepfner had RBI singles in the first inning while Hunter Estabrook had an RBI double in the second.
Trever Reinke, Nate Rice and Eric Salazar combined to give up one hit and one run over the final four innings out of the Raiders bullpen. Northwestern plated its only run off an RBI single in the top of the sixth inning that scored Colton Harold.
Northwestern totaled six hits, led by Sutton Derr who went 2-for-4. Standford, Harold, Fakkema and Kip Cullinan all had one hit for Head Coach Brian Wede’s squad.
Tayden Patterson (1-0) earned the win in his career start for Clarke, giving up six hits and one run while striking out eight over five-plus innings.
