ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Macalester College baseball team split a MIAC doubleheader against Hamline University on the final day of the regular season Saturday night at CHS Field. The Scots, who won the first game, 6-3 before dropping the second, 10-4, are now 26-14 overall and 15-5 in the conference. The Pipers end their season at 13-27, 5-15 MIAC.
Macalester finishes second in the MIAC standings and are the No. 2 seed in next week's MIAC Playoffs, which begin on Thursday, May 7 at CHS Field. The Scots will face No. 3 Saint John's at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, with regular-season champion Bethel taking on No. 4 Saint Mary's at 2:30 p.m.
Macalester's overall win total ties the school record for wins in a season, and this year's team won the most MIAC games since the 2011 team finished first with a 16-4 record. The Scots, who won the MIAC Playoff title in 2017, return to the postseason for the first time since 2018.
In the first game, Hamline struck first with two runs in the bottom of the first inning. Macalester cut the lead in half in the top of the second on a double by senior infielder
Tristan Jones (Fairfield, Conn./Greens Farms Academy) that allowed senior infielder
Josh Planko (Northville, Mich./Northville) to score from second. Then in the third, the Scots loaded the bases on three consecutive bunt singles by junior infielder
Holden Peacock (Houston, Texas/Kinkaid School), senior outfielder
Raymond McCaskey (Colorado Springs, Colo./Manitou Springs) and first year outfielder
John McMurray (Washington, D.C./Sidwell Friends). After sophomore outfielder
Tristan Lander (West Chester, Pa./B. Reed Henderson) hit a sacrifice fly to bring home Peacock, Planko blasted a three-run home run to give the Scots a 5-2 lead.
A grounder by McMurray in the top of the fourth plated Peacock to put Macalester ahead, 6-2. Meanwhile, junior lefthander
Jack Nussbaum (Brunswick, Maine/Thornton Academy) had settled in after the first inning, facing the minimum number of batters in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings and striking out the side in the third. With two out in the bottom of the seventh, Owen Giesen hit a solo home run to make the score 6-3. After Bentley Casey singled, senior
Jamie Loizeaux (Albany, Calif./Albany) relieved Nussbaum and retired the final batter on a groundout.
Nussbaum held Hamline to three runs on six hits and two walks while striking out a career-high 11 batters in 6 2/3 innings to improve to 3-1 on the season. Loizeaux's appearance is his 15th in a MIAC game this season, breaking the conference's all-time record of 14, set by Augsburg's Tyler Kraft and Ben Krause of St. Thomas in 2005. Ten different players had one hit for Macalester, with Planko and Peacock scoring two runs apiece.
As they did in the first game, the Pipers started out with two runs in the bottom of the first inning of Game 2. The Scots tied the score in the top of the third on RBI singles from Lander and Planko, only to have Hamline push six runs across on four hits in the bottom of the fourth to take an 8-2 advantage. With two out in the top of the sixth, junior catcher
Ben Oberdorfer (Jacksonville, Fla./Paxon School) walked, Jones singled and senior infielder
Nathan Gumagay (Potomac, Md./Winston Churchill) singled to score them both and make the score 8-4. A solo home run by Jacob Hasapopoulos in the seventh and another run in the eighth gave the Pipers a 10-4 lead. In the top of the ninth, Peacock and McCaskey drew one-out walks, but a pop-up and groundout ended the game.
McMurray and Lander each had two hits to lead the offense. Junior righty
Nick Strezo (San Mateo, Calif./Hillsdale) started and allowed two runs on six hits while walking two and fanning two in three innings.
Macalester begins play in the MIAC Playoffs on Thursday, May 7 against the No. 3 seed Saint John's at 7:00 p.m. at CHS Field.
