LANSING, Mich. - The fourth-seeded Davenport baseball team played one of their finest games of the season on Thursday night with a 11-2 win over third-seeded Wayne State in the opening game of the GLIAC Tournament. The Panthers improved to 3-0 all-time in the GLIAC Tournament against the Warriors and collected 18 hits. The top four in the batting order for Davenport went 14-of-22 at the plate.
Carson Fischer, named First Team All-GLIAC on Thursday, pitched like it with the first nine-inning complete game of his career. In those nine innings, Fischer threw 131 pitches (90 strikes) and struck out nine batters. He is now just one strikeout shy of tying Grant Wolfram (195) for third on the all-time strikeout list at Davenport. Fischer gave up seven hits and just one earned run and had a stretch of 12 straight batters from the fourth until the eighth inning with allowing a hit. During that span, Davenport took a 3-2 lead and expanded to 11-2.
The Panthers for one night solved two-time reigning GLIAC Pitcher of the Year Karter Fitzpatrick for the Warriors. He had previously won five straight starts against DU and this year made two starts prior to tonight with 14 innings, two earned runs, three walks, and 17 strikeouts. Fitzpatrick lasted 6.1 innings but allowed 12 hits and nine earned runs with two walks and seven strikeouts. It was the first time since April 3, 2021 that Fitzpatrick allowed nine earned runs and that came in four innings at Ashland.
The Panthers got two runs in the top of the first inning which was a good sign of things to come.
Josh Robinson had a RBI double to right field which allowed
Connor Hnilo to score and the throw to the plate skipped into the WSU dugout allowing Robinson to take home with the second run. Wayne State scored their two runs of the game in the bottom of the first as Owen Tuccinardi had a RBI groundout to score Drew Hill and a wild throw on a potential double play turn allowed the second run to score.
The Panthers took over from there as Fischer tossed eight straight scoreless innings and the offense erupted for nine more runs. Eight of the nine Panthers in the starting lineup had a hit and all nine batters reached base in the contest.
Michael Tchavdarov went 4-for-5 with four runs scored and three RBI. It was the third four-hit game of the season for Tchavdarov and he tied his season high in runs scored.
Hnilo tied the single-game DU record with five hits (all singles) in six at-bats. He scored two runs and drove in one run. Robinson drove in three runs and had a two-run scoring single in the sixth inning which gave DU a 7-2 lead.
Anthony Aloisio went 3-for-6 with three RBI. He had a RBI single in the third inning and a two-RBI single in the fifth inning.
The Panthers did have three doubles among 18 hits as Tchavdarov, Robinson, and
Xander Reisbig each had a two-bagger. Davenport (19-32) will now square off against two-seeded Grand Valley State tomorrow (Friday) at 7:00 PM. The Lakers beat Parkside 8-1 in the first game of the GLIAC Tournament on Thursday. GVSU won four of six games in the season series and the teams are 2-2 against each other all-time in the GLIAC Tournament.
