MONTGOMERY, Ill. (WLCSports.com) - Wisconsin Lutheran College opened Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference play on Saturday with a pair of games against 10th-ranked Aurora at Jim Schmid Field. The Warriors hung with the Spartans despite coming up short 2-0 in the opener, before falling 12-2 in game two.
Singles in each of the first two innings from WLC senior
Foster Engelhardt (North Richland Hills, Texas) and junior
Noah Zaccanti (Geneva, Ill.) went unscathed before AU grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second with a bases-loaded RBI groundout. Consecutive hits to start the third inning gave Aurora its second and final tally of the opener.
Wisconsin Lutheran had a baserunner in every inning except the third, but was unable to get any timely hits to plate a run. Engelhardt reached base three times for the Warriors and was one of four players to record one hit. Junior
Matt Brissette (Mukwonago, Wis.) tossed 6.0 solid innings, scattering seven hits and allowing the only two runs. He fanned four and walked only one.
The Spartans struck for a single run in the first, two in the second, and a pair in the third to open up a 5-0 lead in game two. Freshman
Colt Ratliff's (Oxford, Ga.) two-out RBI single in the fourth inning drove in Engelhardt for WLC's first run of the game.
AU answered with a three-run fourth and single tallies in the fifth and sixth for an eight-run advantage. Sophomore
Oliver Lopeztello (Chicago, Ill.) doubled home sophomore
Tim Frerking (Oconomowoc, Wis.) with two outs in the seventh for Wisconsin Lutheran's final run of the contest. Aurora added two runs on three hits in the last of the eighth to impose the run-rule. Six players tallied a hit apiece for the Warriors, with Frerking and senior
Henry Strupp (Watertown, Wis.) each reaching twice.
WLC opens its home schedule on Wednesday when it hosts Edgewood (6-6, 0-0 NACC) for a 12 p.m. NACC doubleheader at Neumann Family Field. Live coverage links can be found at WLCSports.com.
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