LANSING, Mich. - Big Game James once again came to the rescue of the Panther baseball team in an elimination game in the GLIAC Tournament. This time he picked up his third win of the season against Parkside in a 10-5 win which allows Davenport to play on Saturday. The senior lefty earned his sixth overall win of the season and in process had his longest outing of 2023 going 8.1 innings and throwing 114 pitches. He struck out 10 Rangers in the game, just one shy of his season-high also against Parkside back on April 21.
The Rangers (13-36) bow out of the tournament and used six pitchers. The starter Chris Conrad took the loss (2-8) and lasted just three innings. He allowed seven hits and four earned runs with three walks and no strikeouts.
Ben Mets got the team on the board first in the third inning with a RBI double to right center which scored
Coltrane Rubner.
Khale Showers then delivered a two-run blast to left for his team-leading seventh home run of the season and it was 3-0.
Parkside got two runs back in the fourth as Daniel Llanas and Andrew Harris each had a RBI groundout to
Tyler Mosher at second base.
Michael Tchavdarov then had the next two scoring plays for the Panthers. He delivered a RBI single in the fourth and another RBI single in the fifth for a 5-2 lead.
Showers reached on a throwing error and another run scored in the sixth to make it 6-2. That error proved very costly as
Josh Robinson delivered his second triple of the game and this one in the sixth scored two runs for an 8-2 lead.
Gaetano Vallone had a sacrifice fly in the seventh for DU and Showers scored the final run for the Panthers on a wild pitch in the eighth inning. Rubner reached base four times with a single and three walks. Showers went 2-for-4 with a season-high four runs scored and two RBI. All nine Panthers in the starting lineup got a hit and totaled 12 for the contest.
DU will await the results of Game 5 of the tournament between Wayne State and Saginaw Valley State to determine time and opponent tomorrow.
