Box Score MEQUON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Lutheran College baseball team fell short in its first-ever Northern Athletics Conference Tournament game Thursday at Kapco Park, falling to top-seeded Concordia University Chicago, 6-3.
After three and a half scoreless innings, the Cougars broke through in the bottom of the fourth for three runs. Will Randerson doubled home two of those runs to lead the charge. Concordia Chicago tacked on another run in the bottom of the fifth to take a 4-0 lead.
The Warriors were finally able to break through in the sixth, beginning with an Aaron Roeseler(Watertown, Wis./Luther Preparatory) triple that plated Garrick Day (Elk Mound, Wis./Elk Mound) and Connor Vredeveld (Waterloo, Wis./Lakeside Lutheran). Brett Youngbeck(Brown Deer, Wis./Brown Deer) was able to drive home Roeseler to cut WLC's deficit to one run.
The Cougars answered back in their half of the inning with two more runs, benefiting from two WLC miscues, to double up the Warriors for a 6-3 advantage. WLC couldn't get much offense going the remainder of the game, with the score remaining at 6-3.
Jaime Paumen (Glencoe, Minn./Silver-Lake) allowed five earned runs over 6.1 innings to take the loss, striking out two. Joey Hodkiewicz (Burlington, Wis./Burlington) added 1.2 solid innings of one-hit shutout relief. Roeseler ended the day 1-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored, while Vredeveld went 3-for-3 with a run scored.
The Cougars' (33-5) Dan Kluss fanned a conference tournament record 14 batters over 9.0 innings, surrendering only three earned runs to earn the victory. Robert Weis went 3-for-4 with one run and Randerson drove in two and scored once.
Wisconsin Lutheran (17-16) will look to stay alive in the NAC Tournament tomorrow when it faces fifth-seeded Concordia University Wisconsin (15-26) at 1 p.m. at Kapco Park. The game was originally scheduled for 10 a.m., but Thursday's 7 p.m. game was not played due to weather and thus bumped Friday's schedule back by one game. Fans unable to attend the game can follow live stats and video at www.wlcsports.com.
