With an eye toward next year and a desire to send the large senior class out right, the baseball team swept perennial national power Trinity in a doubleheader on Saturday to end the season. Clutch play in all facets of the game led to two walkoff one-run wins.
In the first game on Saturday, Dusty Mones ’09 started and gave the Cardinals seven solid innings letting up four runs, three of which were earned. In the bottom of the seventh and eighth, the team was down by a run, but in both innings they were able to manufacture runs to tie the game.
With two out in the bottom of the tenth, Chris Waelsch ’07 hit a single and by using his tremendous speed and a nifty slide advanced to second on a wild pitch. Catcher Chris Graceffa ’07 then drove him home for the game-ending run with a single to left. Lou Gabel ’08, who pitched three innings of scoreless relief, got the win.
In the second game, the Cards used a similar formula to get the win. Three more scoreless relief innings, this time by Kit Tholen ’08, and a walkoff RBI single by Jesse Leavitt ’06 to score Anthony Gray ’06, were the keys to victory.
While the team will have to overcome the loss of six important seniors, including four starters in the field, sweeping Trinity for the first time since 1994 was a great way to send them out.
“Sweeping Trinity in their career finale is a heck of way to go out,” said Chris Simpson ’08. “Next year’s squad will have to more consistently put together the kind of efforts the team did this past weekend but the potential is there.”
The starting pitching was solid for most of the year and Simpson and Waelsch both had superb offensive seasons.
“We’ve just got to work real hard in the offseason and try to make something happen next year,” said Daniel Poniatowski ’08.
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