One day after dropping two games to first place Concordia, Head Coach
Brian Wede's club turned to a pair of freshmen to tame the mighty Bulldogs and they came through in a big way as Northwestern earned a sweep, 5-3 and 7-1, in a doubleheader played today in Orange City.
Evan Olesen pitched his first complete-game for the Red Raiders in game one, scattering 11 hits an giving up three runs in the full seven innings. Olesen struck out two and improved to 2-2 on the season.
Coach Wede then went to another freshman,
Brady Roberts, who held the Concordia offense in check for eight solid innings, before turning it over to senior
Mason O'Donnell, who pitched a scoreless ninth inning. Roberts limited Concordia to eight hits and just one run while striking out three, improving to a team-best 5-2 on the year.
Northwestern scored all five of its run in the fourth inning of game one, taking advantage of two Concordia errors to go with three Red Raider hits.
Ben De Boer and
Sutton Derr began the inning with back-to-back singles and De Boer came around to score after an error on a ball hit by
Drew Schutt. Derr later scored on a wild pitch from Concordia starter Jason Munsch, who then gave up an RBI single to
A.J. Nitzschke that scored Schutt.
Josh Fakkema hit an RBI groundout and
Austin Zylstra plated the final run on a sacrifice fly.
The Bulldogs scored in the top of the fourth when Ben Berg hit an RBI single that drove in Jesse Garcia. Teyt Johnson added a two-run home run in the sixth. Christian Meza, Garcia and Luciano DePamphillis all had two hits for Concordia.
Munsch, the reigning GPAC Pitcher of the Week, went six innings and gave up six hits, all singles, and just one earned run. He struck out 12.
Northwestern totaled 15 hits in its game two win, led by Zach Rosson who totaled a season-best four hits and drove in two runs.
Britton Yoder went 3-for-5, scoring three runs, and both Derr and Schutt added two hits each. Fakkema belted his second home run of the season, a two-run blast, that put Northwestern up for good in the second inning.
The Red Raiders tacked on two more runs in the third on a two-run double by Rosson to make the score 4-1. They pushed two across in the fifth after a two-run single by O'Donnell and capped the scoring with a Nitzschke RBI single in the eighth.
Tanner Wauhob gave up 11 hits and six runs in 4.1 innings for the loss. Beau Dorman and Meza had two hits each for the Bulldogs.
