The Aurora University Spartan baseball team hosted the Eagles of Benedictine University Sunday afternoon at Solfisburg Park in an important Northern Athletics Conference doubleheader. The Spartans and Eagles battled to a split on the afternoon.
Game One
Benedictine 12, Aurora 1
The Spartans struggled in the first game of the doubleheader as the Eagles scored a run in the first inning and then took a 6-0 lead with another five runs in the fourth inning.
Through the first six innings, the Spartan offense was held in check by Eagles sophomore left-handed pitcher Kevin Crowley. With one out in the bottom of the sixth, AU junior first basemen
Brett Van Asdlen homered over the left field wall to make the score of the game 6-1. This is the lone run the Spartans scored.
AU sophomore pitcher
Drew Gay started for the Spartans and freshman pitcher Nick Cjaza came in relief try to shut down the Eagles, setting up the Spartan offense to try and rally against the Eagles once again.
Gay took the loss against Eagles to set his season record at 6-2. Gay threw four innings while striking out one. Cjaza threw the last three innings and allowed six hits. VanAsdlen led the Spartans, going one for two with the homerun and scoring one run. Junior outfielder
Josh Davidson was two for three.
Game two of the doubleheader saw the Spartans respond from the game one effort and jump on top of
the Eagles early.
AU junior pitcher Stephen Sitterly took the ball in game two and set the tone early, getting strikeouts for two of the six outs in the first two innings.
The Spartans scored first in the bottom off of the Eagles junior starting pitcher, Mark Belcastro. In the first is when senior second basemen, scored on the single after he doubled to the left center wall.
In the bottom of the third AU captured the lead and never looked back. AU scored four runs on three hits. Foley again came through for the Spartans with a bases clearing double to make the score 6-2 in the bottom of the third. The Spartans scored four more runs in the fourth inning, including a two run home run by VanAsdlen which was followed two batters later with a solo home run by Singraber.
Sitterly was controlling the Eagles offense, until the sixth inning when the Eagles started to hit. In the sixth
inning Benedictine scored three runs on five hits, which including a two RBI single by sophomore outfielder Kevin Hendricks.
Freshman pitcher Jose Munoz came in with two outs in the sixth to shut them down to get the last out.
The Spartan offense pushed across a run in the sixth inning when Singraber homered again, making it his third on the season.
Munoz coasted through the seventh inning but ran into some trouble in the eighth inning when senior pitcher George Hernandez came in and closed the door for good on the Eagles.
The Spartans took advantage of a great day at the plate by Singraber who finished three for three, with two home runs, five runs score, and three runs batted in. Foley was also three for four a double and four runs batted in.
Sitterly allowed 10 hits over five and two/thirds inning but held on for his fourth win (4-1) of the season.
The split puts AU to 24-9 overall and 15-3 in the NAC and Benedictine is now 19-15 overall and 10-8 in the NAC.
