STERLINGTON, La. — It was a successful start to The Cajun Collision for the Bulldogs as they secured a pair of victories on Friday (Feb. 7) against Georgetown College and IU Kokomo to improve their win streak to three straight victories.
Game One- Georgetown (Ky.)-4 McPherson-10
It did not take long for the Bulldogs to flex their muscles and show off their power as in the top of the first inning,
Jared Kramp blasted a solo homerun out into the Louisiana sky and gave MC a quick 1-0 lead. Later in the inning,
Dawson Walters was able to secure an RBI to make it a 2-0 lead for the Bulldogs before the Tigers even had a chance to swing the bats. The offense kept rolling for MC as Kramp got enough of a ball to secure an RBI double in the top half of the second inning to make it a 3-0 lead for MC.
Georgetown was able to get a run on the board in their half of the second inning, but that run served as the last the Tigers would score until nearly the end of the game as starting pitcher Matthew Bombersback locked it down, surrendering just three runs in his five innings of work to go along with four strikeouts to keep Georgetown off the scoreboard. The MC bats also came alive to support the strong pitching effort as the Bulldogs scored seven unanswered runs between the third and fifth innings of play to make it a 10-1 lead for MC heading into the bottom of the fifth inning. The Tigers were able to scrape across three late runs, but it was too little too late as the Bulldogs secured the victory thanks in large part to Kramp's 2-5 day with three runs batted in.
Game Two- IU Kokomo-5 McPherson-9
Riding the flames from their win earlier in the day, the bats for the Bulldogs remained red hot as they quickly rattled off seven runs in the top of the first inning,
Peyton Starr and
Dawson Walters got it started with a pair of RBI singles and were followed up by two more runs scored off fielder's choices. Michael Christiansen ripped another RBI single for MC and then came around to score after
Jace Essig ripped an RBI double to secure a rapidly quick 7-0 lead for the Bulldogs. The Cougars pushed across a pair of runs in the bottom half of the first inning to make it 7-2, but
Marcus Patton came through with an RBI single in the top of the third to push the MC lead out to 8-2.
IU Kokomo began their comeback push in the bottom of the third as a two run homerun got the Cougars back into slam range with the score now being 8-4 in favor of the Bulldogs.
Jared Kramp came up big again for MC in the bottom of the fourth with an RBI single to make it 9-4, but trouble was brewing as a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the sixth scored a run for the Cougars and made the score 9-5.
Levi Betts, the starting pitcher for the contest, only surrendered two hits and recorded five strikeouts but gave up eight walks in his second start of the season.
Francisco Paradis and
Kadin Gehring locked down the Courgar bats out of the bullpen as the Bulldogs secured the 9-5 victory. Essig acted as the driving force for the MC bats, going 3-4 in the game with two runs batted in.
The Bulldogs will be in action again tomorrow (Sunday, February 7) for two more games in The Cajun Collision. The first game will pit MC against Dakota State with the first pitch scheduled for 11:00 a.m. with the second game being against Nelson University with first pitch being set at 2:30 p.m.
