Defense wins the day as No. 24 Central Methodist sweeps Pride in series openers

PEOSTA, Iowa - Entering their second-straight home weekend in Heart of America Athletic Conference play, the Clarke University baseball team was unable to pull out a victory in their opening doubleheader against No. 24 Central Methoidst on Friday afternoon in 3-2 and 6-2 losses at A.J. Spiegel Park.

The Pride collectively allowed just two earned runs of the nine runs scored by CMU on Friday with CU producing four errors in their extra innings game in the opener then had three more in the day's finale resulting in all six of those runs being unearned as the Eagles would make no errors in all 14 innings.

Clarke scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the third when William Ramirez knocked a one out double to right as the Pride would load the bases following a Dean Ormonde single and a Randy Lopez-Acosta walk for Jin Hattori to drive in Ramirez with a sacrifice fly and make it 1-0 CU.

The Eagles would get a rally started in the top of the fifth after a leadoff walk, a sacrifice bunt, and another walk before a Valentin Cerna Jr. single to left would have loaded the bases but an errant throw from the outfield ended up at the backstop, allowing the tying run to score before another error on a ground ball on the following batter gave Central Methodist the lead at 2-1 after five innings.

A scoreless top of the sixth would end Dante Maietta's day as the senior right hander had a strong bounce back performance on the mound on Friday going six innings allowing just four hits and one earned run with five walks and striking out six CMU batters for a no decision.

Clarke was able to manufacture a game-tying run in the bottom of the sixth when Alden Brown led off the inning with a single for Cole Swartz to pinch run, steal second base, then score on a Darin Eales single up the middle to put the score at 2-2 and eventually force extra innings.

David Jacobo would take over the Maietta in the seventh, only allowing one base runner in the inning to give CU a chance at the walk off in the bottom of the inning but they would go three-up, three-down to force extra innings.

Two doubles would put the Eagles back on top when Gavin Whitehurst doubled to right center to drive in Ryan Malzahn, who led off the inning with a double down the left field line for Central Methodist to lead 3-2 before Landon Winingham closed the door, allowing a hit but having his catcher, Tanner Sears throw out an attempted base stealer to end the game.

A big first inning would see CMU score five unearned runs off of Christian Prull after the first batter of the game reached on an error before a pair of strikeouts then Malzahn and Carlos Negron went back-to-back with home runs to right field, where the wind was carrying balls, then the Eagles would produce more two-out traffic on the bases to add a pair of runs before ending the inning batting around.

Clarke would get a pair back in the bottom of the third when Swartz and Hattori drove in runs with a single and ground out respectively as the Central Methodist lead would get back to just three runs at 5-2.

Prull settled in nicely after the lengthy first inning to go 4.2 innings allowing six unearned runs on six hits with four walks and four strikeouts when he gave way to Zach Arnold who pitched 2.1 hitless innings out of the bullpen with three strikeouts and two walks.

That strong outing from Arnold allowed the Pride to stay a swing away from tying the game but they first had to load the bases, which they would do in the bottom of the seventh with two outs for Hattori but starter Cesar Morales would get his seventh strikeout of the game to close out the 6-2 win for the doubleheader sweep.

Both of these teams will meet up for another doubleheader in Peosta, Iowa on Saturday afternoon with another 1:00 p.m. CT scheduled first pitch for game three at A.J. Spiegel Park.