Photo by KCAC staff
Great Bend, Kan. – The McPherson College baseball team saw its KCAC tournament run come to an end on Saturday with a 12-7 loss to the Ottawa University Braves. Playing in their first championship game in program history, the Bulldogs needed to beat the Braves, who came into the game undefeated in the tournament, twice to claim the championship.
The game got off to a rough start for the Bulldogs. They gave up nine runs to the Braves in the first two innings of play. After that they settled in and held the Braves to just three more runs over the next six innings. The Bulldogs won innings three through nine, outscoring the Braves 7 to 3. Unfortunately, the hole they dug for themselves in innings one and two was too deep to climb out of.
Offensively, the Bulldogs scored their seven runs on ten hits, led by a 4 for 5 performance from Trevor Johnson that included one RBI. The Bulldogs had three homeruns in the game, a solo shot by Noah Nelson, giving him five for the tournament, a two run shot by James Canar, and a three run bomb by Jake Pearson.
The Bulldogs went with Charles Munns on the bump to start the game. Munns lasted only two-thirds of an inning, allowing five runs on six hits and recording one strikeout. With two outs in the first inning, Alex Escobar came out of the bullpen in relief of Munns. He got the final out of the first and the first out of the second inning, but in between, allowed four runs on five hits.
With the Braves leading 9-0, the Bulldogs put the ball in the hands of Jacob Gilcrease, who pitched five relief innings on Thursday afternoon in the win against Oklahoma Wesleyan. Against the Braves, he stopped the bleeding, giving up just one run in four and two-thirds innings of work. He also added three strikeouts and two walks to his stat line. The last two innings went to Darby Gilbert. The righty finished the game allowing a pair of runs on a pair of hits with two strikeouts and a lone walk.
With the loss, the Bulldogs move to 36-13 on the season. They needed to win the KCAC tournament to secure an automatic bid to the NAIA postseason tournament. Now they will have to wait to see if their body of work this season will warrant an at-large berth from the tournament selection committee.
