Nearly two months into the 2017 season, Seattle University baseball finally got its first series win of the season, taking two out of three games against Northern Colorado.
Sean Sutton had four RBIs in the final game of the series.
The Redhawks (11-19-1, 3-6 WAC) traveled to Greeley, Colo. to take on the Bears and left with their best offensive production of the season.
They got a season high 19 hits in their 14-12 victory, on Friday. It is not quite the pitching performance they hoped for, but their bats are finally starting to wake up.
Junior Curtis Perrin led the way in the first game, going 3-3 at the plate, including two home runs. Seattle U maintained the lead, but they gave Northern Colorado plenty of chances to get back in it. After taking a 14-8 lead in the eighth inning, they allowed the Bears to score four runs in the bottom half of the frame to pull within two runs. But, that is as close as they would get as the Redhawks pulled off a win.
The offense kept it going the next game, but this time the poor pitching caught up to them as they lost 10-11.
After taking a 6-1 lead through five innings, the pitching staff collapsed. The Redhawks were outscored 10-4 the rest of the game to take the loss. Freshman Nick Hoefling gave up two earned runs before being pulled without recording an out, and sophomore Tyler Oldenberg, who has been their most reliable arm out of the bullpen, gave up seven runs, six earned, in 1.1 innings.
Despite the hard loss, they came back in game three for a 10-1 victory.
Freshman Lucas Chapman made his first start of the season, earning his first win after pitching 5.1 innings, striking out five and giving up one run. He was relieved by freshman Nathan Bonck who has struggled in his starts, but pitched 2.2 scoreless innings and struck out three.
On the offensive end junior Sean Sutton broke out of a season long slump, going 3-5, and getting 4 RBIs. Junior Michael Ciancio had two hits and knocked in two runs.
The Redhawks scored 29 runs for the weekend, a major step up from their performance the rest of the season. This was aided by some key contributors breaking out of slumps. Sutton went 5-10 in the last two games of the series and Andreychuk went 6-14.
Seattle U is looking to sustain this success for the rest of the season as they fight to climb back into contention for a conference championship.
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