(FLORENCE, Ky.) – The Thomas More University baseball team returned to Mid-South Conference play Friday afternoon with a doubleheader split against the University of Tennessee Southern Firehawks. They won game one 11-2 in seven innings before dropping a thrilling nightcap, 8-6. The Saints now sit at 15-11 overall this season and 6-5 in the MSC.
Game One: Thomas More defeats UT-Southern, 11-2.
- Thomas More scored early and often in the first game, taking advantage of several Firehawk errors.
- They scored four unearned runs in the first inning, as Brennan Martin (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder) had the lone RBI on a base hit to left field.
- Two more runs would score in the second, as a Bailey Martin (Independence, Ky./Simon Kenton) triple and a Derek Atwood (Burlington, Ky./Conner) RBI groundout would plate the runs and make it 6-1.
- Thomas More would score five more runs in the fifth inning.
- Jeremy Ward (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder) had an RBI double to left center.
- Gavin Vogelgesang (Cincinnati, Ohio/St. Xavier) had an RBI single through the right side.
- Vogelgesang would score due to an error before Atwood hit a two run homerun over the right center field wall to bring in the final two runs and make it 11-2.
Game Two: UT-Southern defeats Thomas More, 8-6.
- Atwood would get the scoring started for the Saints with an RBI double with two outs in the first to go up 1-0.
- The Saints would fall behind 5-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning.
- They used some two out magic to score three in the sixth.
- It began with a Jacob Caruso (Rootstown, Ohio/Rootstown) single to right field.
- Zak Schlachter (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder) then also hit a single, before the damage was done with a three-run homerun to right center by Brennan Martin to cut the lead to 5-4.
- Vogelgesang would single to begin the seventh before coming all the way around to score and tie the game on wild pitches from the Firehawks.
- The Firehawks scored one in the eighth, before Thomas More tied it up in the bottom of the inning.
- The damage was done on a Ben Duncan (Hilliard, Ohio/Hilliard Bradley) single to right field to bring in the tying run.
- Unfortunately for the Saints, a two-run homerun would be the difference in the top of the ninth for Tennessee Southern.
Game One:
Game Two:
- Caruso led the Saints with three hits, while Schlachter had two hits.
- Brennan Martin had three RBI to lead the team.
- Schlachter and Vogelgesang both scored two runs.
Game One:
- Junior Mychal Grogan (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder) threw a fantastic game for the Saints, throwing a complete game.
- He struck out a career-high 11 batters for his fifth win of the season, while walking no one and just giving up two runs and one earned.
Game Two:
- Austin Dennis (Cincinnati, Ohio/Oak Hills) threw 5.2 innings, striking out four and giving up five runs.
- Zach Dugan (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder) threw 2.2 innings and struck out three while allowing three runs and two earned runs.
- Justin Bierbaum (Bridgetown, Ohio/La Salle) threw 0.2 innings for Thomas More, allowing no hits.
The Saints will face the Firehawks in the rubber game of the series tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m. at Thomas More Stadium.
