DETROIT, Mich. - The Davenport baseball team saw their GLIAC win streak ended with a 9-8 loss to Wayne State on a game that was halted on Friday night and resumed on Saturday afternoon. It was just the second league loss for the Panthers who still have a comfortable lead in the conference standings. The halted game resumed in the bottom of the eighth and the Panthers could not rally as their 11-game GLIAC win streak was stopped.
Wayne State jumped ahead 4-1 in the second inning against
Colton Blankstrom. Mason McGuire had a two-run scoring single in that inning to give the Warriors their three-run lead. The Panthers immediately answered in the top of the third.
Michael Tchavdarov had a RBI groundout and
Cody Hultink followed with a RBI single.
Dylan Pawenski tied the game with a RBI single.
Davenport took the lead back with a run in the top of the fourth.
Coltrane Rubner had a RBI single and that lead was short-lived as the Warriors got a two-run scoring triple by Caleb Sanders for a 6-5 lead after four innings.
Logan Todd had his second RBI single of the game to tie it up in the top of the fifth. DU broke the tie in the top of the eighth as
Chase Kemp singled up the middle to score Pawenski for the 7-6 lead.
Travis Liford scored on a wild pitch later in the inning to make it 8-6. The Warriors had the big hit in the bottom of the eighth as McGuire hit a three-run home run off
Brandon Skorupski. It was the only batter that he faced.
DU put
Justin Johnson on second base after a two-out double in the top of the ninth, but a strikeout by Hultink ended the game. Blankstrom went 3.2 innings in the start for Davenport and gave up six runs.
Mason Hill was stellar in relief going 3.2 innings and allowed two runs with five strikeouts.
Ian Dixon allowed two hits in 2/3 of an inning with a walk. Ethan Getting, who was the fourth pitcher of the game for Wayne State, got the win finishing the final 1.1 innings with two strikeouts.
Batka was already having an excellent season on the mound, but had his best start of the season in the second game of the series. He pitched seven scoreless innings before giving up a single to the second batter of the eighth inning. The Warriors stranded two runners in the eighth and then Batka came back in the ninth and retired WSU in order to secure his eighth win of the season and two shutout. He lowered his season ERA to 2.18 and leads the GLIAC with 81 strikeouts. He climbed to fifth in a single-season at DU in strikeouts. Batka walked two and struck out nine on 109 pitches. He has struck out 37 batters in his last 28.1 innings of work.
The scoring early gave Batka some needed run support. DU scored three runs in the first and added two more runs in the second. Tchavdarov had a double in the first to score
Sam Clay and Rubner. Pawenski also drove in a run on a fielder's choice. Rubner had a RBI double in the second inning and Tchavdarov had a sacrifice fly to make it 5-0.
Zach Hopman had a RBI single up the middle in the third inning to score Hultink for a 6-0 lead. Hopman reached on a RBI fielder's choice to score
Justin Johnson in the seventh and Todd had a sacrifice fly in the seventh and a RBI double in the ninth to end the scoring.
Todd went 2-for-3 with a walk and two RBI. Hultink went 2-for-4 with a walk and run scored. Rubner also had two hits in five at-bats. DU finished with 11 hits in the game. The two teams will play a doubleheader tomorrow starting at noon to conclude the weekend series.
