Jimmies baseball mounts comeback to split doubleheader at NWC

ORANGE CITY, Iowa — The University of Jamestown fought hard but a bang-bang play at the plate in the bottom of the ninth didn’t go their way as they lost 4-3 to Northwestern College on Monday, April 24, at Northwestern’s Baseball Diamond.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Red Raiders’ Mason Porepp hit a sacrifice fly to center and Sam Stanford took off from third sliding his hand into home ahead of the tag to give the Raiders the 4-3 walk-off win.

“(Chase) Burke did a great job of getting behind the ball,” Jimmies head coach Tom Hager said. “It was a shallow fly ball and he did a great job of setting up behind it. I thought he made a great throw, it just wasn’t in time. Give them credit for putting the ball in play there, I thought we made a great throw, unfortunately, it didn’t go our way.”

Before that though, the game was back and forth as every Red Raiders run came with a Jimmies response. The Red Raiders opened the scoring in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead before the Jimmies tied the game up in the fifth when Triston Madison hit a line drive back to the pitcher, Dylan Kirkeby, whose throw got past the catcher, allowing Troy Berg to score.

The Red Raiders took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the fifth and then the top of the sixth saw an immediate response in the form of a Hayden Brown solo homer to tie the game up at two. The see-saw continued from there over the last three innings.

UJ 3, NWC 4

UJ: 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0–3 4 1

NWC: 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1–4 9 2

WP: Ryan Reynolds (1-4) LP: Kendall Yackley (2-1)

Scoring plays:

First inning:

NWC: Noa Vogel bases-loaded walk, Sam Stanford scores

Fifth inning:

UJ: Triston Madison reaches on a fielder’s choice, Troy Berg scores, unearned

NWC: Kip Cullinan RBI double, Evan Olesen scores

Sixth inning:

UJ: Hayden Brown solo HR

NWC: Isaac Short RBI single, Mason Prepp scores

Seventh inning:

UJ: Xander Orejudos RBI double, Berg scores

Ninth inning:

NWC: Porepp sacrifice fly, Stanford scores

The Jimmies were facing a loss in the face with one out in the seventh inning but they would not quit and got a 10-5 win over the Red Raiders in the second game of the doubleheader.

“We have shown in the past that we have the ability to come back in games and it didn’t look very good there for several innings,” Hager said. “But, really proud of how we were able to pile some things together in the seventh inning and make that big comeback. It starts with one guy, you can talk about the home runs that were hit and those were awesome, but it starts with the first guy getting on base. So, really proud of the guts that my team showed today to be able to salvage a split

The Jimmies (21-17, 12-10) started the scoring on a long ball in the bottom of the first, this time from Madison, his third of the season. The lead only lasted until the second when the Red Raiders took the 2-1 lead on two hits.

The Red Raiders (19-25, 12-12) pushed the lead out to 5-1 in the fourth inning. The Jimmies would not quit though as in the sixth inning, Jordan Singleton hit a double to score Madison and cut the deficit to 5-2. The score stayed that way until the seventh inning when the Jimmies came up trying to avoid getting swept in the doubleheader and they did just that. The Jimmies' comeback was sparked by an error when Chase Burke reached. Two batters later, the Jimmies’ Kendall Yackley hit a single to score Burke and make it 5-3.

The biggest swing of the game came off the bat from Xander Orejudos who crushed a three-run homer to push the Jimmies in front 6-5. The Jimmies added another four runs in the inning to take a 10-5 lead.

The Jimmies are back in action at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 28, when they host Dakota Wesleyan.

UJ 10, NWC 5

UJ: 1 0 0 0 0 1 8–10 9 1

NWC: 0 2 0 3 0 0 0–5 9 3

WP: Trei Hough (3-3) LP: Brad Tornow (1-1)

Scoring plays:

First inning:

UJ: Madison solo HR

Second inning:

NWC: Porepp scores on a wild pitch

NWC: Jacob Kindhart RBI groundout, Colby Shelton scores

Fourth inning:

NWC: Porepp 2 run HR, Vogel scores

NWC: Eli Rash RBI double, Bryce Click scores

Sixth inning:

UJ: Jordan Singleton RBI double, Madison scores

Seventh inning:

UJ: Yackley single, Chase Burke scores, unearned

UJ: Orejudos 3 run HR, Yackley, Isaiah Roebuck score

UJ: Singleton 2 run HR, Julian Romero scores

UJ: Julian Sansores reaches on an error, Ben Patton scores, unearned

UJ: Chase Burke strikeout swinging, Berg scores on the throw, unearned