VERONA, Wis. – The Edgewood College baseball team made a bold statement that they belong in the conference title race with a doubleheader sweep of NACC co-leader Benedictine University. The Eagles pulled out a 5-3 nail-biter in the opener and then pulled away for a 6-1 win in the second game of the day. With the two wins, Edgewood College has extended their winning streak to six games, their longest since 2009.
Edgewood College (13-13, 8-4 NACC) never trailed in either game and answered every Benedictine run with one of their own in the first game. The bottom of the order came through for the Eagles for their first two runs of the game. Number eight hitter Peter Hefty drove a two-out single to center field to score the Eagles first run in the second inning. Then Brodie Engel, out of the ninth spot, brought home Nick Lehner for a 2-1 Edgewood College lead in the fourth. Jacob Yellovich followed a Zack Creekmore double with an RBI single to put the Eagles ahead 3-1 after five innings.
The Eagles needed great starting pitching and Nate Averill answered the call in the first game. Averill went seven solid innings, before running into a bit of trouble in the eighth. Benedictine loaded the bases with nobody out to knock Averill out of the game, and eventually score two runs for a 3-3 tie. Still, Averill allowed just two earned runs over seven innings in getting a no decision.
Edgewood College broke the tie in the bottom of the eighth. After Pat Manning walked and stole second, he moved over to third on Creekmore's sacrifice bunt. Then, with Brad Clark at the plate, Manning raced home with the go-ahead run on a wild pitch from Benedictine University (13-16, 8-4 NACC) reliever Dylan Smith. Then Clark added an insurance run with a ringing single to score Andrew Lauritzen from the third base.
AJ Verhage had entered the game in the eighth inning and stayed on to work around a single and an error in the ninth for his first win of the season. Yellovich, Lehner and Hefty each went 2-for-3 in the game, while Pat Manning was 2-for-4 with two stolen bases.
Game two was shaping up to be another pitching duel between Edgewood College starter Steve Gavin and Benedictine starter Mike Irgang, but Creekmore put Edgewood College on his back with another offensive display. In the first, Creekmore singled home Lauritzen who had singled and stolen second base for a 1-0 lead. After Benedictine tied it in the fourth inning, Creekmore came to the rescue again with booming triple to right center field to once again score Lauritzen.
Creekmore added his third hit and third RBI on the seventh with another single. The Eagles then broke the game open with Lehner driving in another run and Hefty coming through with a two-out, two-RBI single to right field for a 6-1 lead. The only drama left was to see if Gavin could finish the complete game, which he did despite a couple of Benedictine hits in the ninth. Edgewood College finished off the win with a classic 4-6-3 double play.
Creekmore's terrorization of the NACC continued with a 3-for-3, 3 RBI performance. He now leads the NACC in batting average (.475), on-base percentage (.537) and slugging percentage (.725) and ranks second in runs batted in (34). He is hitting an unfathomable .583 in conference games and is currently riding a streak of 24 straight games having reached base safely, just two off the Edgewood College record.
Not to be disregarded Lauritzen finished 2-for-4 with three runs scored and two stolen bases. Eight of the nine starters in the Eagles' lineup had at least one hit and all nine reached base.
Edgewood College will head to Milwaukee tomorrow for a doubleheader at Neumann Family Fields against Wisconsin Lutheran College. Due to threat of rain later in the day, Sunday's start time has been moved up to 12:00 p.m.
