In the final regular season Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference doubleheader of the 2015 season, the Aurora University baseball team split with Edgewood College, losing game one 6-3 before winning the second game 9-5. With the split, AU will be the No. 6 seed in the NACC Tournament next weekend.
Game One
Edgewood 6 Aurora 3
The Spartans scored quickly to start the game as
Danny Walczak led off with a walk and moved to third on a
Tanner Oymaian single. The next batter,
Dillon Popovich hit a sacrifice fly to right that scored Walczak for a 1-0 AU lead.
AU starting pitcher
Colin Hart wiggled out of a first inning jam but allowed a run in the second after allowing two hits. Hart then ran into problems in the third, giving up three hits and gave way to
Kyle Manske who came in to relieve Hart. At the end of the third, AU trailed 3-1.
In the fifth the Spartans cut the deficit to one when Oymaian singled an moved to third on a two-base error and when Popovich singled, Oymaian scored. But Edgewood expanded the lead up to four (6-2) with a three run bottom of the inning on three hits and one error. AU did score another run in the seventh on a pair of doubles from
Steven Jaquez and Walczak but that was all the scoring AU would manage and fell 6-3.
Game Two
Aurora 9Â Edgewood 5
The AU offense jumped on Edgewood pitching for eight runs in the second through fifth innings and an 8-2 lead for starting pitcher
Cody Love. Popovich had the big hit in the third with a three-run home run and
Ryan Rybakowski had a two-run single in the fifth.
After Edgewood scored two runs off Love in the sixth, Love gave way to
Jacob Stockman in the seventh. Stockman went the final three innings for his second save of the season while Love improved his record to 6-3 with the win.
Popovich finished the second game going five-for-five and was seven-for-eight on the day with five runs batted in.
With the split, AU is now 22-18 overall and 11-9 in the NACC. Next action for the Spartan baseball team comes on
Thursday, May 7, 2015 when they travel to Concordia University Wisconsin for the 2015 NACC baseball tournament. AU will be the #6 seed and play the #1 seed Concordia University Chicago. Game time is set for 10:00 a.m. in Mequon, Wisconsin.
