St. Peter, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus baseball team was able to salvage split against Saint Mary’s University on Saturday afternoon at the Gustie Baseball Field. After falling 1-0 in an 11-inning battle in game one, Gustavus bounced back with a 2-1 victory in game two. The Gusties are now 5-9 overall and 2-4 in the MIAC after earning their second consecutive conference split. Saint Mary’s moves to 7-14 overall and 3-2 in the MIAC.
Game One Recap
The afternoon’s opening contest turned out to be an old fashioned pitchers’ duel between Gustavus’s Grant Soderberg (Jr., Eden Prairie, Minn.) and Saint Mary’s Step Scatassa. In his best outing of the season, Soderberg went nine complete innings and didn’t allow a single run. He struck out a season-best 10 batters, walked just one, and allowed a total of eight hits. In the top of the ninth inning, Saint Mary’s threatened with the bases loaded and no outs. Soderberg was able to grind his way out of the jam by getting an infield popout, having a runner gunned down at home plate on a botched suicide squeeze attempt, and picking up an inning-ending strikeout.
Steph Scatassa was equally as good through his seven scoreless innings. He allowed seven hits, did not walk a single batter, and made his infield work with 12 ground-ball outs.
Saint Mary’s was finally able to break the scoreless tie in the top of the 11th inning. After back-to-back singles to lead off the inning, Tyler Lursen reached base when Soderberg’s replacement, Michael Strelow (Jr., Braham, Minn.), couldn’t field a sacrifice bunt cleanly. With the bases loaded, Tommy Merkelis drew a walk that scored Gannon, which turned out to be the game-winning run.
Gustavus couldn’t come up with a way to solve either Cardinal pitchers, as A.J. Redders recorded the win after allowing just one hit in four innings.
Strelow was credited with the loss after giving up the lone run on three hits in two innings.
Leading Gustavus at the dish was Taylor Bigandt (So., Littleton, Colo.) and Josh Chatfield (Fr., Apple Valley, Minn.). Bigandt went 3-for-5 with a double, while Chatfield went 2-for-4 with a walk.
Grant Soderberg hasn’t been credited with a decision his last two outings and now carries a team-leading ERA of 1.23.
Game Two Recap
The Gusties received another solid pitching performance from its starter in the day’s nightcap. Where the 11-inning game one took nearly three hours to complete, it took Sam Carlson (Fr., St. James, Minn.) only an hour and 22 minutes to pick up his second win of the season and improve to 2-1. Carlson went all seven innings, allowing one run on three hits with three strikeouts. The rookie dropped his ERA below 2.00 to a mark of 1.80 with today’s outing.
The only blemish on Carlson’s stat line came in the first inning when Saint Mary’s grabbed a 1-0 lead.
Gustavus got two runs and gave Carlson the lead he needed in the bottom of the second inning. After a pair of singles by Max Fidler (Jr., Lino Lakes, Minn.) and David Tranvik (Sr., Robbinsdale, Minn.) to lead off the frame, Cody Christensen (So., Luverne, Minn.) bunted for a hit to load the bases. With one out and the bases still loaded, Josh Chatfield came through with a one-run single to center field that plated Tranvik and tied the game at 1-1. Scott Benjamin (Sr., Northfield, Minn.) followed suit with his own RBI single to center to score Christensen and give the Gusties a 2-1 lead.
From that point on, Carlson allowed just three total hits coming in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings.
The Gusties registered a total eight hits in the game. Christensen led the way with a 2-for-3 outing at the plate.
Ben Dobosenski suffered the loss after giving up two runs on eight hits in six innings.
The Gustavus baseball team will begin a new week on Sunday, April 13 with a road series against Hamline University. The doubleheader will be played at Midway Stadium in St. Paul and will start at 1:00 p.m.