Trailblazers fall in tough, extra-inning battle with No. 6 Kellogg

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University baseball team closed out their four-game weekend set against NJCAA Division II No. 6-ranked Kellogg Community College and NJCAA Division I No.7-ranked Wabash Valley Saturday at Jerry Blemker Field.

The Trailblazers took a tough, extra-inning loss to begin the day against Kellogg CC, falling 9-6 in eight innings.

Vincennes closed out the weekend by dropping their second game of the day to Wabash Valley by the score of 13-3.

The Trailblazers grabbed the upper hand on the Bruins early in the first game of the day as sophomore Colin Long (Evansville, Ind.) got the first hit of the day with a single and scored on an RBI double by sophomore Peyton Lane (New Paris, Ohio).

Lane would later score on a wild pitch to give the Trailblazers an early 2-0 lead over the highly ranked Kellogg squad.

KCC would get a run back in the third before VU answered with back-to-back doubles by Peyton Lane and freshman Colton Evans (Henderson, Ky.) to take a 3-1 lead.

The Bruins would even the score in the fourth and Vincennes would answer to get a run in the bottom half after a leadoff single by Nick Williams (Alexandria, Ind.) who would later score on an RBI single by sophomore Josiah Sizemore (Cambridge City, Ind.).

VU extended their lead in the fifth as freshman Ethan Burdette (Linton, Ind.) reached on an infield single and score to give the Blazers a 5-3 lead.

The Bruins rallied back in the sixth however, scoring three runs in the inning to take the lead back at 6-5.

Vincennes would respond in the bottom of the sixth when freshman Kobe Bartlett (Rockport, Ind.) scored on a fielding error, tying the game and sending it to extras.

Kellogg struck first in the extra frame in a big way, with a two-out bases clearing three-RBI double to take a 9-6 lead over the host Blazers.

Vincennes would manage to get runners on first and second with one out in the bottom half but were unable to bring them around to score as the Bruins came away with the 9-6 win in eight innings.

VU got another good outing on the mound from sophomore Connor VanLannen (Clinton, Ind.) who threw 5.1 innings, giving up five runs on five hits and punching out five.

Sophomore Luke Osborn (Perrysville, Ind.) pitched 2.1 innings in relief, giving up three runs on three hits and striking out three on the day.

The Trailblazers looked to bounce back from this early loss against the No. 7-ranked Wabash Valley Warriors in the final game of the weekend.

The two offenses set the tone early, with runs being scored in each of the first two and a half innings of play.

Wabash Valley plated three in the first before VU responded with two in the bottom half on an RBI single by Evans and an RBI double by VanLannen.

The Warriors scored one in the second, which was answered with an RBI single by Colin Long.

Wabash Valley then scored three runs in the third and three more in the fourth to take a 10-3 lead over the Trailblazers.

The VU offense was unable to answer back in the later innings, with only one runner reaching third base safely as Wabash Valley added on to take the 13-3 win at Jerry Blemker Field.

Freshman Jake Stuteville (Rockport, Ind.) got the start on the mound for VU in the second game of the day, lasting three innings giving up seven runs on six hits and coming away with five strikeouts.

The Trailblazers got a big inning out of the bullpen from freshman Eli Steimel (Sullivan, Ind.) who struck out all three batters he faced in the game on just 15 pitches.

"Firstly, our team came out with energy against Kellogg in the first game," VU Head Baseball Coach Chris Barney said. "We could have easily folded but we had energy in both games, so I'm proud of our guys for that."

"But we should have had that game against Kellogg," Barney added. "Should have won it but didn't. We didn't make plays defensively, we let fly balls drop, granted it was a mess out there with the wind gusts but we dropped four different fly balls that should have been outs. It's a different scenario if we catch those. Kellogg did a good job of capitalizing on those mistakes when we would drop those, the next guy would usually get hits and put some runs on the board for them."

"I thought our bullpen did a decent job today. We had some guys come out and pitch well. Steimel did well and Caleb Moore came in to get a hitter or two late. We're just trying to mix and match a little bit and trying to get ready for the start of conference play coming up to see who can and can't get something done out of the pen."

"Then we came out with energy against Wabash Valley and unfortunately they out-hit us a little bit. We would answer and then they would answer right back and that's what good clubs do and that's obviously why they are ranked in the top-10."

VU will have a busy week ahead of them, weather permitting, as the Trailblazers are scheduled to head down to Mt. Carmel, Ill. for another showdown against the No. 7-ranked Wabash Valley Warriors Tuesday, March 8 at 2 p.m. eastern.

The Trailblazers will then head to Gallatin, Tenn. Wednesday, March 9 to take on the Pioneers of Volunteer State Community College. First pitch for this game is set for 3 p.m. eastern.

"We've learned from this weekend that we can compete," Barney said. "Now we have to learn how to win. That's the next big step for us. Then we have to continue to sustain some things and our guys have to continue to step up. We have to play better defense and we've talked about that since day one and it continued to show today."

"But we came out against good competition, as good as we can make it, you can't get much better baseball at the Junior College level than what we had here this weekend," Barney added. "We will keep it up when we go down to Wabash Valley on Tuesday and against Volunteer State, who is a good club out of Tennessee, on Wednesday."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

GAME ONE

Kellogg – 001   203   03 – 9

VU (5-8) – 201   111   00 – 6

VINCENNES HITTING

2B – Lane 2, Evans. RBI – Lane, Evans, Sizemore.

GAME TWO

Wabash Valley – 313   301   2 – 13

VU (5-9) – 210   000   0 – 3

VINCENNES HITTING

2B – VanLannen. 3B – VanLannen. RBI – Long, Evans, VanLannen.