Pride pull out pair of victories over Peru State on Senior Day

PEOSTA, Iowa - Starting their final and technically only home series of the 2022 season off with Senior Day, the Clarke University baseball team was able to take the first two games of their four game series against Peru State College by final scores of 8-1 and 4-3.

The series opening win would go down as head coach Dan Spain's 300th win in his career as the skipper for the Pride as he would also clinch his sixth 30-win season in his 10 full seasons since taking over in the middle of the 2012 season.

CU earned a comfortable win in the opener behind a strong start from Tyson Tucker as he went six innings allowing one run on five hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. Nolan Lamere would come in to close out the final three outs of the game in a smooth three-up, three-down seventh.

The top of the Pride order really came to play as well as Daniel Phyle, Darius Bradley, and Victor Lara all recorded two hits and drove in at least one run as Lara drove in two runs, Phyle scored three times, and Bradley drove in a run and scored a run.

Game two was a more closely contested game as Clarke took leads in the first and third innings before the Bobcats would come back to tie the game in the second and fifth innings.

Clarke was able to scratch across that go ahead run in the bottom of the sixth as Bryce Simon led off with a hustle double to left field before Phyle would produce a two-out, two-strike single to drive Simon in from third to put CU up 4-3.

Isaac Rohde had a strong outing relieving starter Devan Quesada as the lefty would go three scoreless innings allowing only one hit and striking out four batters as he was also able to have a drama free one-two-three seventh inning to complete the day one sweep.

These two teams will be back out in Peosta to finish off their series at A.J. Spiegel Park on Sunday with first pitch of game three scheduled for 1:00 p.m. CT.