IW baseball swept in doubleheader at MacMurray

By Andy Krutsinger,

Mt. Pleasant News

JACKSONVILLE, Ill. ­? The Iowa Wesleyan baseball team just couldn?t find their offense in a conference doubleheader at MacMurray on Wednesday evening.

The Tigers dropped the two-game SLIAC tilt, falling 6-0 in the first matchup and 15-2 in the second.

In game one, the Tigers couldn?t solve Highlander starting pitcher Cory Steinha, who threw a complete game one-hitter to completely shut down the IW offense.

The Highlanders began the game with a couple of RBI singles in the bottom of the first inning to take a 2-0 lead.

IW had their best opportunities to cut into the advantage in the third inning.

Alex Payne walked to start the inning off, but Connor Urevich grounded into a double play to make it no on and two outs. Joseph Belarde followed the double play ball with a double for the only Tiger hit of the game, but IW couldn?t capitalize as he was stranded on third base.

MacMurray added one run in the fourth inning, one more in the fifth and two in the sixth. IW could never put together a rally to make a threat.

Belarde finished 1-2 to lead the Tigers offensively in the first game. Payne was 0-1 with the team?s only walk.

Austin Christian threw a complete game, going all six innings and giving up six earned runs on 11 hits and one walk, while striking out five batters.

MacMurray jumped on IW early in game two. The Highlanders bursted out to a 5-0 lead after the first inning and added four runs in the second.

The Tigers finally got on the board in the top of the fourth inning. Tanner Anderson began the inning with a single and advanced to second base on a groundout by Payne. After a passed ball got Anderson to third, Jacob Leonard brought him in on a sacrifice fly that made it 9-1.

MacMurray struck right back in the bottom half of the inning, however, with three runs of their own to stretch the lead to 12-1.

The IW offense started to get rolling a bit in the top of the fifth. Chazz Brown was hit by a pitch and Josh Sanchez singled with two on and nobody out. Kyle Divelbiss brought Brown in with a one-out RBI single. The Tigers loaded the bases on a walk from Anderson but Payne lined out to second base to end the inning.

MacMurray tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning and that ended the scoring for the day.

Divelbiss ended the game 1-3 with one RBI. Leonard was 0-2 with the other Tiger RBI.

Brown and Anderson each went 1-2 with one run scored in the loss. Sanchez finished 1-3.

Michael Lyons was tagged with the loss, going 1.2 innings and giving up seven earned runs on four hits and six walks, while striking out one batter.

Ben Deweese threw the final 4.1 innings. He gave up seven runs (six earned) on nine hits and three walks, while striking out three.

IW fell to 6-10 overall and 0-5 in SLIAC play. The Tigers have been slumping ever since the conference schedule opened up on Saturday.

The Tigers will attempt to end their five-game skid on Saturday, March 25, when they host Blackburn College for a conference doubleheader at home, starting at 1 p.m.