Blake goes eight strong as Pride handle Mount Mercy 8-0

OZARK, Mo. - In their second win or go home game of the day, the Clarke University baseball team played a complete agme to an 8-0 win over Mount Mercy University on Sunday night.

Similarly to their tournament opener, early runs and an outstanding starting pitching performance carried the way for the Pride to have as comfortable of a tournament win as you could see in an elimination game.

Sophomore right hander Johnny Blake got the start for CU and went eight shutout innings as he struck out five and only allowed three hits in his 108-pitch performance.

Clarke got four runs in the bottom of the first inning to continue the strong offensive performance that ended their extra innings win over Baker. It started quickly as a leadoff walk to Daniel Phyle and a stolen base was followed up by a Victor Lara RBI double and a Bubba Thompson RBI single to make it 2-0.

As the inning continued Maguire Fitzgerald knocked in a pair of runs with a single up the middle to make it 4-0 as all nine hitters in the Pride lineup went to the plate in the opening inning to knock out Mustangs starter Ryne Schooley.

Three more runs would come to the plate for CU in the third inning as Bailin Markridge doubled home Bryce Simon, Phyle singled home Fitzgerald, and Lara cracked another double to score Markridge as it was quickly a 7-0 game in favor of Clarke.

The final run in the game was scored in the seventh inning on a sacrifice fly from Simon following a leadoff triple by Bryce Hinton as Simon, Hinton, and Lara finished with multi-hit games.

Nolan Lamere would come in to shut the door in the ninth with a one-two-three inning, striking out two in 16 pitches of his second appearance of the tournament.

Clarke baseball will advance to the loser's bracket final on Monday morning against MidAmerica Nazarene for an 11:00 p.m. CT first pitch as the winner will receive the second automatic bid into the NAIA Tournament by making the championship game against Central Methodist.