The IUS baseball team defeated the Indiana Technical Institute on March 8 at the Koetter Sports Baseball Complex by a score of 8-4.
The win moved the Grenadiers’ record to 7-8. Indiana Tech fell to 5-7.
Adam Lipke, senior pitcher, put together a solid outing to get the win for the Grenadiers. He threw a complete game, allowing four runs, three of which were earned, and struck out seven batters.
The win improved Lipke’s record to 2-1 on the season.
Ben Reel, IUS head coach, said Lipke’s performance was big for the Grenadiers.
“It was huge when you play eight games in four days,” Reel said. “It was also huge for him to get some confidence, we’re going to need him this year.”
IU Southeast struck first in the bottom of the first inning when Drew Locascio, senior shortstop, hit a solo homerun off of Eric Sherrill, ITI junior pitcher, to put the Grenadiers ahead 1-0.
The Warriors answered back quickly in the top of the second inning. Their rally began when Lance Hamner, ITI junior infielder, hit a triple to the right field fence and scored on an error by Craig Roberts, freshman third baseman.
The next batter for ITI was Elijah Chee, senior third baseman, who drew a walk and moved to third base when Lipke made a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt attempt by Chad Geier, ITI junior shortstop.
Geier moved to second base on the error, giving the Warriors runners on second and third bases with no one out.
Steve Dowding, ITI senior outfielder, singled to left field and drove in Chee and Geier and made the score 3-1 in favor of the Warriors.
Lipke retired the next three batters he faced, two of them with strikeouts, to end the Warrior rally.
The Grenadiers answered with four runs in the bottom of the second inning. Trevor Summers, sophomore right fielder, hit an RBI double to make the score 3-2.
Summers scored on an infield single by Jordan Pass, sophomore second baseman, which tied the score at three.
Locascio followed Pass with a double to give the Grenadiers runners on second and third base with two outs.
Following Locascio’s double, Kris Begley, ITI head coach, made a pitching change and inserted Ethan Tribolet, freshman pitcher, into the game.
The first batter Tribolet faced, Jeff Klump, junior first baseman, hit a base-clearing double that put IU Southeast ahead for good at 5-3.
The Warriors closed the gap to 5-4 when Dowding knocked in his second run of the game on a triple in the top of the fourth inning.
Paul Dunagan, junior catcher, capped off the scoring for the Grenadiers when he hit a three-run homerun in the bottom of the fourth inning off of Mike Sobel, ITI freshman pitcher.
Reel said he was happy with his team’s performance.
“We played really good defense, had good situational hitting and we threw strikes,” Reel said. “When we do that nobody can beat us.”
By ERIC MCGUFFIN
Editor
demcguff@ius.edu