Minnesota Crookston eliminated Wayne State from the Northern Sun Conference Baseball Tournament Thursday afternoon with a 4-2 victory over the Wildcats played at the Bird Cage in Sioux Falls. WSC ends the year at 29-23 while the Golden Eagles advance to another elimination game Thursday evening with a 27-24 mark.
The Golden Eagles opened the scoring with a pair of unearned runs in the third inning to take a 2-0 lead.
Wayne State got one run back scoring for the first time in the bottom of the fourth when
Max Heard opened the inning with a leadoff double to right center field and later scored on a
Braden Cannon sacrifice fly cutting the UMC lead to 2-1.
Minnesota Crookston pushed the lead back to a pair of runs in the sixth inning as the Golden Eagles opened the inning with a solo homer to go ahead 3-1.
Wayne State responded in a similar way in the bottom of the seventh as Cannon connected for a solo homer over the left field wall to start the inning reducing the Golden Eagle advantage to 3-2.
But Minnesota Crookston answered again in the top of the eighth with a one-out solo homer to close the scoring giving the Golden Eagles a 4-2 victory.
UMC held a 9-7 edge in hits over WSC. Heard finished 3 for 4 with a double and run scored to lead the 'Cats at the plate. Cannon added a solo homer and drove in both Wildcat runs while
Easton Mains,
Cam Madsen and
Korey Cozad each singled.
Starting pitcher
Braden Sweet (2-3) was tagged with the pitching loss, yielding three runs (one earned) on six hits with five strikeouts and one walk in six innings of work.
Jace Coleman worked one inning of relief and gave up one hit with three walks and one strikeout. Lefthander
Brooks Kneifl pitched the final two innings and allowed one run on two hits with two strikeouts.
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