DANIEL BRICKHAUS | Reporter
The Lindenwood baseball team dropped their second series of the year three games to one this past weekend at Mississippi College.
The Lions’ loss came after an offensive explosion in games three and four that included home runs by Billy Cameron, Blaine Crim, and Ty Alderman,
In Game One, pitching was a key for both teams. For the Choctaws, they started Chris Crosby, who went seven innings of two run baseball with one walk and five strikeouts. As for the Lions, Tyler Cassmeyer started on the bump and threw 5 2/3 innings with four walks and four strikeouts.
The Lions jumped out to an early two-run lead in the fifth inning thanks to an RBI fielder’s choice from Mitchell Krebs and a single from D.J. Miller. The Choctaws started to chip away at the Lions’ lead when Cameron crossed the plate in the 6th inning on a Lindenwood fielding error. The Choctaws added another run in the 8th to tie and eventually win the game in the 10th on a walk-off hit by pitch.
The second game of the doubleheader went well for the Lions. They quickly jumped on the scoring train when Dominic Revetta knocked in an RBI in the first inning. Kyle Hentis started the game for the Lions and went a strong 5 2/3 innings allowing his only run in the fifth with two outs. Ryan Sosnowski knocked in one of two runs in the seventh inning with a single up the middle to score Bryce Beckmann.
Right after that, Krebs knocked in the third and final run for the Lions. Eric Hipp came into relief for Hentis where he pitched 1 1/3 innings and notched the win for Lindenwood.
After taking one game on Saturday, the Lions had high hopes going into Sunday. Lindenwood started Jacob Thompson who only went 1 1/3 innings where he gave up five hits, five earned runs with one strikeout. After Thompson exited the game, Niko Marshall came in and had just as much trouble. Unable to record an out, Marshall gave up 5 runs on 4 hits and a walk. Johnathon Reese then came in and pitched two shutout innings.
Three more Lions pitchers followed Reese, giving up three more runs which brought the score up to 15-0 for the Choctaws. The Lions were able to push two runs across in the top of the sixth with RBIs from J.P. Schneider and Austin Gauspohl.
The fourth and final game again went the way of the Choctaws. They won 10-0 and had no trouble capitalizing on Lindenwood’s mistakes. Blake Beckmann started things off for the Lions and even though he gave up a solo home run in the first to Blaine Crim, he settled right down and pitched well for the Lions.
The second inning was the Lions’ worst. They gave up four runs on three errors which gave the Choctaws a five-run lead. After Beckmann got through the fourth, in came Austin Muich, who gave up two runs on back-to-back doubles and then a single to Parker Haberstroh. In the sixth inning, Justin Taylor came in and gave up a two-run home run to Cameron that put the icing on the cake for the Choctaws.
After rough back-to-back weekends, the Lions are coming back home for games against the defending NCAA DII Champions Augustana University as well as Lake Erie College at the Lou Brock Sports Complex.
