The Point Park baseball team started off last week on a good note jumping up two spots in the regular season National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Baseball Coaches’ Top 25 Poll.
The Pioneers opened the season ranked No. 22 in the NAIA Division II, but after winning nine games at the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational, they were bumped up to No. 20.
“It’s nice to move up in the polls due to our team’s success,”senior Zach Zimmerman said. “But it is very important that through the rest of the year we keep taking every game one at a time and not to [be]come complacent no matter what we are ranked.”
Point Park started off their games last week in Grand Rapids. Unfortunately, their Florida luck did not follow.
The Pioneers lost both games to No. 13 Davenport on Wednesday. Davenport had also recently jumped in the polls, moving up six spots to their current No. 13.
The Panthers outhit the Pioneers, starting off their first game at a 5-2 lead.
Later in the game, Davenport added three more runs to make it a final score of 8-2.
Nolan Krivijanski, Point Park transfer from California University of Pa., took the mound for just over five innings. Krivijanski gave up five runs, but had six strikeouts.
Davenport pitcher Corey Murphy did not let the Pioneers get very far in hitting, allowing only two runs on three hits.
Murphy, the 2014 Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Pitcher of the year struck out nine of the Pioneers and walked three.
In game two against Davenport, the Pioneers still did not have the momentum to win.
The Panthers scored 15 runs, six in the third inning, which made another early lead of 9-2.
Point Park had a couple hits and scored on a RBI single in the sixth and another in the seventh.
Davenport won the second game at a score of 12-4.
On Thursday, Point Park faced Madonna, splitting the games by losing the first and winning the second.
Madonna’s Alex DeYonker threw a no-hitter in the first game, which has not happened to the Pioneers since 2012.
The Pioneers lost 4-0 in the first game against Madonna but made a comeback in game two.
Jordan Crowell had a double for a 2-1 lead in the third, and the Pioneers soared from there.
An inning later, Chris Hernandez hit a home run and Demetrius Moorer tripled home another, and Oscar Romero had an RBI single in the fifth to help the lead 5-3.
Moorer had two triples and three RBIs. Jarrad Brown took the mound for the Pioneers for five innings, giving up five runs. Zimmerman came in and after getting one out, Jake Horew stepped into finish the game.
The Pioneers won game two at 8-6.
“I feel our sense of urgency, will and drive to win went down a bit because of the success that we had in Florida,” Moorer said. “Instead of building off of it, we took a step back, but made gains forwards again because the win we had versus Madonna. We were challenged by our coaches to step the urgency back up and play to our fullest potentials, and I believe we did that a bit.”
With the game two win against Madonna, 11th year head coach Loren Torres earned his 300th career win at Point Park. Torres is 300-192-2 in his career and 193-88 at Point Park.
“It is an honor to be a part of coach Torres’ 300th win,” Krivijanski said. “That is a great achievement for a great head coach. He is the man for the job. I can speak on behalf of the team that we all love playing for coach Torres and the rest of the coaching staff. Congrats on 300, but it’s time to keep adding.”
The Pioneers will make their debut at home on Mar. 18 against Penn State-Greater Allegheny at 1 p.m. at Green Tree Park.
