Photo by Micah Gilbert
Salina, Kan. – The McPherson College Baseball team picked up their second series sweep of the season, taking the third game from Kansas Wesleyan University on Wednesday night 8-4. Games one and two were played back on February 13 and 14 at Bulldog Park, but poor weather forced the postponement of game three until tonight.
The Bulldogs took advantage of a stiff south wind blowing out to leftfield at the Coyotes home park scoring eight runs on 14 hits, with three of those hits finding their way out of the ball park. Four Bulldogs recorded multiple hits, led by
Mark Strebin (Sr. Westville, Ill.) who was 3 for 4 with all three Bulldog homeruns, driving in seven runs.
Brevin Baessler (Sr. Gilbert, Ariz.) also had a nice day at the dish, recording two hits, both doubles, in three attempts, with an RBI and two runs scored.
Lane Fleming (Sr. Council Grove, Kan.) and
Trevor Johnson (So. San Diego, Calif.), were the other two Bulldogs with multi-hit performances. Fleming was 3 for 4 with a double, and Johnson went 2 for 4 with a pair of singles.
On the mound for the Bulldogs was
Josh Lewis (So. Loveland, Colo.). Lewis pitched the first six innings, and was credited with the win. He scattered five hits and allowed two runs, striking out seven along the way, and walking zero. In the seventh inning, the Bulldog coaching staff elected to bring in
Mairion Brunken (Jr. Willemstad, Curacao) to close out the game. Brunken gave up two runs to the Coyotes on one hit, but both runs were unearned as two errors in the inning by the Bulldog defense, led directly to the runs being scored. Things settled down after the two runs scored, and Brunken was able to strikeout the final batter to secure the victory for the Bulldogs.
"It was a big day for the DOGS and one of our seniors,
Mark Strebin," commented Bulldog head coach,
Bryan Moses. "KWU has been hot so we knew we had our hands full, but we played solid baseball today."
With the win, the Bulldogs move to 27-11 on the year, and more importantly 17- 7 in conference play. They have a huge series this weekend at home against the Tabor College Bluejays. Tabor is currently in second place in the KCAC standings, just one game up on the Bulldogs who are in third. A sweep of the series would mean that Mac would leapfrog the Jays in the standings. The three game series is set to start with a doubleheader on Saturday at 1:00 pm then finish with a single 9 on Sunday also at 1:00 pm.
