LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On Sunday at Knights Field, the Bellarmine University baseball team scored 11 runs in the first inning while cruising to a 17-2 victory over Maryville in the opener before falling 8-7 to the Saints in the tail end in Great Lakes Valley Conference play.
Bellarmine (16-13, 7-7 GLVC) piled up 32 hits over the doubleheader, including four home runs and 11 doubles, but couldn't quite pull off the sweep of Maryville (12-14, 9-5).
Game 1: Bellarmine 17, Maryville 2
This was Bellarmine's highest scoring output in GLVC play, and that perhaps was a foregone conclusion after the Knights racked up 11 runs in the first inning.
Bellarmine registered an astonishing 11 hits, including seven doubles, in the frame. Junior catcher
Chris Gambert, senior first baseman
Tyler Neeley, senior second baseman
Trevor Lines, senior center fielder
Alex Phillips, sophomore left fielder
Matt Higgins and senior right fielder
Zac Wiley all doubled in the inning, with Gambert doing it twice.
The countdown to Game 2 was more or less on after the first inning, with
Eddie Mathis (5-1) assuring that by hurling his third complete game of the season. The senior left-hander allowed two earned runs on five hits with eight strikeouts in 7.0 innings as the Knights reached the run rule.
Higgins highlighted a four-run fourth with a three-run homer. He finished 3 for 4 with four RBIs and three runs scored. Phillips and Lines were both 3 for 4, with Phillips driving in four runs and Lines plating two. Gambert gave Bellarmine a fourth player with a three-hit game as he went 3 for 5 with two doubles, a triple and three RBIs.
Wiley collected two hits and two RBIs, and Neeley also had two hits. All nine Knights posted at least one hit.
Game 2: Maryville 8, Bellarmine 7
Bellarmine battled back after trailing 4-0 and 7-4 but could never quite overtake Maryville. A throwing error in the sixth that led to three unearned runs for the Saints ended up biting the Knights.
Two-run homers were a theme in the game. Maryville hit two of them to take a 4-0 lead by the third, but Wiley countered with a two-run shot — his ninth of the season — in the bottom half to cut the deficit to 4-2.
Wiley tied it up at 4 with a two-run double in the fifth, but Maryville answered with three runs in the sixth, the frame with the costly error by the Knights. Higgins cut the Saints' advantage to 7-6 when he blasted a two-run homer in the bottom half, his second round-tripper on the day and fifth of the season.
Maryville's Cody Klotz, who had three homers over the doubleheader, lifted a solo shot in the seventh for an 8-6 lead and valuable insurance run that proved to be the difference. Gambert smashed a solo homer in the seventh for his seventh long ball of the season, but the Saints held off the Knights from there.
Bellarmine got runners to second and third with two outs in the ninth, but Klotz, who came on from right field with one out, was able to close the contest with a strikeout.
Phillips, Higgins, Wiley, Gambert and Neeley all had two hits. Wiley picked up four RBIs. Senior right-hander
Ethan Cleary and sophomore right-hander
Brandon Pfaadt each tossed 1.0 scoreless inning of relief.
The teams will play the series finale starting at noon (ET) Monday at Knights Field.
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GAME 1 BOX SCORE (HTM)
GAME 2 BOX SCORE (HTM)
