Northfield, Minn. – The Macalester College baseball team continued its stretch of road games with a trip to Northfield to take on Carleton. The Scots split on the day, falling 9-2 in game one and coming back to win 10-8 in a riveting 11-inning game. Macalester is now 9-18 (5-9 MIAC) and Carleton is now 7-14 (4-5 MIAC).
The Scots started game one with two runs in the first. After two hits and a walk, junior
Kenny Rodriguez (Bronx, N.Y./George School) hit a sacrifice fly to center field to bring home senior
Lian Lincoln (Anchorage, Alaska/South Anchorage). Senior
Michael Helton (Laguna Beach, Calif./Sage Hill) then singled to bring home first year
Bowman Wingard (Palo Alto, Calif./Palo Alto). Macalester held the Knights scoreless for two innings, but the Knights came back in the third with four runs. Carleton tallied five more runs to take game one, 9-2.
Macalester took an early lead in game two. Senior
Anthony Palma (Mooresville, N.C./Lake Norman) hit a two-out single RBI to plate Rodriguez and go up 1-0. The Knights would tie the game in the third and take a 2-1 lead in the fifth. At the top of the sixth, sophomore
Matt Mukai (Foster City, Calif./Aragon) doubled, allowing senior
Michael Moreno (Massapequa, N.Y./Massapequa) to score off a Knight error and tie the game. In the second half of the inning, Carleton put up two runs to regain the lead, 4-2. Macalester continued to fight and Rodriguez hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth, to go up by a run. Carleton would hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game at five. A scoreless ninth inning forced the teams into extra innings.
The Scots broke through in the 11
th inning. With bases loaded, Lincoln was hit by a pitch, allowing first year
Hayes Waddell (North Hampton, N.H./Winnacunnet) to come home. Then Moreno cracked a two RBI single up the middle to score Wingard and Palma, going up 8-5. Mukai's single to right field scored Lincoln and Moreno, increasing the Scots' lead to five, 10-5. The Knights would score three runs in the bottom of the eleventh. However, first year
Luke Moore (San Francisco, Calif./Stuart Hall) came in to pitch with two outs in the bottom of the 11
th, and struck out the Knights' Cayten Gardner to seal the Scots' victory.
Rodriguez went 4-for-6 in game 2 scoring two runs and registered three RBI's with his home run in the eighth. Junior
Joey Clark (Brubank, Calif./Burbank) got the win, keeping the Knights scoreless in the ninth and tenth innings.
The Scots' next doubleheader is scheduled for Wednesday April 27. Macalester will travel to Duluth for a MIAC doubleheader against St. Scholastica. Game one will be at 2:30 p.m. with game two at 5:00 p.m.
