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ST. PAUL -- The Martin Luther College baseball team was unable to hold on to a pair of early leads in a pair of non-conference losses to Crown College on the campus of University of Northwestern-St. Paul on Wednesday. The Knights lost the opener 13-4 before dropping the second game 5-2.
Crown 13, MLC 4
The Crown offense came alive in the middle innings to push the Storm to a 13-4 win in Game 1.
The Knights led 2-0 after the three innings thanks to run-scoring base hits by Jared Lindemann and Joey Behm, but the Storm quickly erased that with a seven-run fourth inning. The Storm sent 11 batters to the plate in the inning and scored six unearned runs thanks to an MLC error and a pair of balks.
Crown continued its offensive onslaught with three more runs in each of the next two innings to put the game out of reach.
Dillon Solomon (0-3) started the game for MLC and allowed seven runs (one earned) on four hits and five walks. He also tied Lindemann for the team lead with a pair of hits and drove in two runs at the plate.
Crown 5, MLC 2
The Storm once again made the most of their chances in the middle innings on the way to a 5-2 win in Game 2.
The Knights started strong once again as Andrew Mantz drove home Andrew Deisinger in the second inning to give MLC a 1-0 edge, but Crown took control with two runs in the fourth inning, followed by a three-run fifth inning against MLC pitcher Adam Kock (0-3).
Kock allowed all five runs on seven hits in a complete game effort.
Tyler Roecker led MLC a tthe plate with three hits, and also added one RBI.
MLC fell to 2-10 on the season, while Crown improved to 7-8 with the two wins.
The Knights return to action on Friday when they travel back to University of Northwestern-St. Paul to take on the Eagles in a rescheduled, nonconference doubleheader. The games were originally scheduled for Saturday at MLC but were moved to UNW’s turf field on Friday. First pitch of Game 1 is scheduled for 4 p.m.