LOVES PARK, Ill. – The Edgewood College baseball team faced a win or go home scenario on Friday night against Concordia University Wisconsin. The Eagles jumped out to a four run lead in the first inning and held on to top the Falcons 8-7 in the first elimination game of the Northern Athletics Conference Baseball Tournament.
Treye Dennison led off the game with a single to right field and Ryan Walker followed with a walk. Jimy Landwehr and Tim Barry then notched back-to-back run scoring doubles to give the Eagles (28-14) a 2-0 lead. After that, Steve Binder and Mike Selvaggi tallied consecutive run scoring singles to push the lead to 4-0 after the top of the first inning. With the singles, Binder and Salvaggi extended their hitting streaks to 15-games apiece.
The Falcons (22-18) cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the inning as Ryan Schilter drove in a run with a groundout and Adam Martz ripped a single through the left side to score another run and make the deficit two runs after one inning.
Edgewood College got those two runs back in the top of the second inning as Landwehr sparked a two-out rally with a single up the middle. After a Barry single, Binder reached on an error and Selvaggi drove in Landwehr and Barry with a base hit through the left side to extend the Eagle lead back to four runs.
After a couple of scoreless frames, Concordia Wisconsin cut into the deficit again in the third inning. Dan Shae deposited a two-run home run over the right field fence to cut the deficit to two runs again.
Just as Edgewood College did earlier, they matched those two runs and pushed their lead back to four runs in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded, Scott Ortega lined a sacrifice fly to right field and the Eagles tallied their final run of the game on an error as they took an 8-4 lead in the fifth inning.
However, the Falcons answered again in the sixth inning as they cut the deficit to one run. With runners on second and third, Matt Schilter crushed a three-run home run to left field to make the score 8-7.
That was as close as Concordia Wisconsin would get as Matt Krueger only allowed two base runners and one hit over the final three innings to give the Eagles the win. In the game, Krueger gave up all seven runs and scattered nine hits while striking out four and walking five. He also became Edgewood College’s single season strikeout leader as broke Cody Flynn’s record of 75. Krueger now has 79 this season. The complete game was Krueger’s eighth complete game win this season and sixth in a row.
Edgewood College’s 3-4-5-6 hitters all recorded two hits apiece in the contest. Landwehr went 2-for-5 while Barry and Binder went 3-for-4 in the victory with all three scoring two runs and driving in another. Selvaggi went 2-for-5 and drove in three runs in the contest.
With the win, Edgewood College extended their season another day as they will play Rockford College tomorrow at noon in another elimination game. Edgewood College will provide live video and live stats for the contest with the links being found on EdgewoodCollegeEagles.com. If the Eagles top the Regents they will advance to play Aurora University in the championship round of the conference tournament.
