MOORHEAD, Minn. – The Macalester College baseball team traveled out to Concordia College today to take on the Cobbers. The first game was a shootout in which the Scots prevailed 9-7. The second was less explosive and less favorable for Mac, as the Cobbers won 2-1. Macalester moves to 17-10 overall on the season and 7-3 in the MIAC. Concordia moves to 9-13 overall and 4-4 in the conference.
In the first game, Macalester bounded out to an early lead in the first three innings. Senior
Jack Planko (Northville, Mich./Northville) singled to send senior
Niko Alexander (Bethesda, Md./Walt Whitman) home in the second inning. Then, in the third, the Scots exploded for four runs, capped with sophomore
Bobby Munoz (Santa Monica, Calif./Santa Monica) batting sophomore
Tristan Lander (West Chester, Pa./B. Reed Henderson) and first-year
John McMurray (Washington, D.C./Sidwell Friends) home. The Cobbers broke the seal in the fourth with a homer, but Planko plated Munoz to make it 6-1. The Scots couldn't keep Concordia down forever, though: the Cobbers rattled off four runs in the fifth to pull within a point. Junior
Holden Peacock (Houston, Texas/Kinkaid School) scored on a wild pitch in the sixth, and the Scots tacked on two more in the top of the seventh. The Cobbers logged a pair of runs in the bottom of the seventh, but it wasn't enough.
In the second game, both teams tightened the screws on defense. Macalester's lone point came from senior
Raymond McCaskey (Colorado Springs, Colo./Manitou Springs) when he homered in the sixth inning to tie the game. Mac couldn't muster any more offense, though, and a sacrifice RBI from the Cobbers in the seventh was enough to topple the Scots and secure the split.
Junior
Jack Nussbaum (Brunswick, Maine/Thornton Academy) dialed in the win in the first game for the Scots on the mound, pitching 4.2 innings and striking out five batters while walking one.
Macalester returns to action at home tomorrow, Monday, April 13 for a non-conference matchup against University of Northwestern (MN) at 4 p.m.
