Jimmies baseball ends season with 6-5 loss to Briar Cliff

CRETE, Neb. — The University of Jamestown stranded the bases loaded in the sixth inning and that cost them as they lost 6-5 to Briar Cliff University in the GPAC Tournament on Friday, May 5, at the Doane Ballfield Complex.

“This season was full of difficulties, tough weather and too many losses but at the end of the day we have a great group of guys that do things the right way,” Jimmies head coach Tom Hager said. “I’m proud of all of them.”

The Jimmies’ Triston Madison came to the plate with the bases loaded and only one out with the Jimmies trailing 5-4. The sophomore lined out to the first basemen Quentin Evers who stepped on the bag for an inning-ending double play.

“There were a couple of situations like that, that took place throughout the game where we had runners in scoring position and lined out and we teach our guys to hit the ball hard and good things will happen,” Hager said. “Typically lining out more often, creates good situations for our offense but we just didn’t get the ball to fall. 13 chances but stranding nine runners was extremely frustrating for all of us.”

The Jimmies (27-19, 16-10) took their first lead of the day in the first inning on a Madison double to take a 1-0 lead. But the Chargers (23-25, 9-19) immediately responded with three runs in the bottom of the first to go up 3-1. The back and forth continued as the Jimmies scored three runs in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead. The lead would only last until the bottom half of the inning as the Chargers' Jake Allen led off the inning with a solo homer to tie the game up before they took the lead later in the inning on a run-scoring single to take a 5-4 lead.

The Chargers put the game away in the eight with a run-scoring single to push the lead out to 6-4. The Jimmies got one back in the ninth when Hayden Brown hit a single up the middle to score a run and cut the deficit to 6-5.

The Jimmies struck out 15 times in the loss, which is the most strikeouts they have had in a game since they struck out 18 times against Missouri Baptist on Feb. 25. The Jimmies are expected to return 10 of their top 12 batting average leaders and four of their top five ERA leaders.

“Hopefully the returners understand that there are higher expectations for this program, hopefully, they will work their butts off in the off-season and come back better players at the end of the summer,” Hager said. “We’re going to continue to work and continue to do what we can do as a staff and as a group of players to get better and better and that starts tomorrow.”

UJ 5, BCU 6

UJ: 1 0 0 0 3 0 0 1–5 13 1

BCU: 3 0 0 0 2 0 1 X–6 10 1

WP: Brett Sitzmann (2-3) LP: Payson Mills (2-5) SV: Carter Schorg (1)

Scoring plays:

First inning:

UJ: Triston Madison RBI double, Xander Orejudos scores

BCU: Cam Riemer 2 run single, Jared Sitzmann scores, Matthew Hmielewski score

BCU: Jake Chronic reaches on an error, Quentin Evers scores, unearned

Fifth inning:

UJ: Madison reaches on an error, Orejudos scores, unearned, Troy Berg scores

UJ: Jordan Singleton RBI single, Alex Alva scores, unearned

BCU: Jake Allen solo HR

BCU: Evers RBI single, Sitzmann scores

Eighth inning:

BCU: Matthew Delgado RBI single, Jake Chronic scores

Ninth inning:

UJ: Hayden Brown RBI single, Julian Romero scores