Baseball goes 1-3 in Boston
Non-conference road trip features 3 1-run games
April 11, 2017
Nick Beardsley tossed his second straight complete game in Boston on Friday and extended his scoreless innings streak to 14.1 in the lone win for the Pioneers.
Point Park spent its River States Conference (RSC) bye week on the road at Fisher College for a pair of games against Fisher and College of St. Joseph from Vermont.
Beardsley went seven innings and allowed only two hits against College of St. Joseph to lead Point Park to a 1-0 win on the first day of the series in Boston.
Stefan Mrkonja hit a lead-off, solo home run to begin the game for the contest’s lone run. He is now tied for the RSC lead with seven home runs on the year.
The 1-0 victory followed a 9-7 loss in game one to College of St. Joseph that saw Nolan Krivijanski’s scoreless streak end at 27.1 innings.
The senior allowed four runs, three of them earned, in the fourth inning that included two home runs. It was his shortest start of the season.
Point Park trailed 9-3 entering the seventh inning and stringed together a comeback that fell short. The loss ended the Pioneers’ 14-game winning streak.
The Pioneers lost a pair of one-run games the following day to the same teams.
Point Park starter Logan Linder allowed two runs and struck out five in the day’s first game against Fisher.
The Pioneers gave Linder a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning, but the lead was squandered in the bottom half of the frame.
Fisher plated the winning run in the bottom of the sixth with two outs off reliever Addison Domingo, who dropped to 6-2 on the year.
Cole Horew started game two and gave up four runs, three of them earned, in the first two innings. Point Park stayed in the game with a pair of two-out runs in the first and another two-out run in the second.
Domingo relieved Horew in the third inning and shut down the College of St. Joseph bats for five straight frames.
Point Park tied the game in the sixth inning thanks to a sacrifice fly from catcher Chris Hernandez that plated shortstop Cole Johnson.
The game went to extras tied at four and Domingo stayed on the mound.
With one out in the College of St. Joseph half of the eighth, Domingo gave up the game-winning double to drop his second contest of the afternoon.
It was the first time Point Park lost consecutive games since March 5 when it dropped a doubleheader to Rio Grande.
With two home runs in Boston, the Pioneers matched the mark for the most homers in a season hit under head coach Loren Torres with 25.
The last time Point Park hit 25 home runs was 2014 when the Pioneers won the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament to earn a bid to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Opening Round.
Point Park returns home Wednesday for another non-conference matchup with College of St. Joseph. The Pioneers then travel on the road this weekend to Midway to continue their RSC schedule and host Indiana University Southeast next weekend.
Point Park currently stands at 16-4 in the RSC and trails 19-5 Midway for the top spot in the crowded conference. Defending RSC regular season champion IU Southeast is in third place entering this weekend with a 15-5 record. Rio Grande, which took three of four games against Point Park at the beginning of the season, is in fourth with a 13-6 record.
The Pioneers have three four-game series left this season, ending at home against Brescia on April 28-29.