UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. - The Saginaw Valley State University baseball team began its weekend series against the Ashland University Eagles with a single nine-inning game on Saturday (May 3). After falling behind by a few runs early, the Cardinals came through and started the weekend on the right note, posting a 14-6 victory in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) contest.
With the victory, SVSU improves to 18-22 overall on the season and an even 15-15 in the GLIAC. Ashland falls to 23-18 overall and 13-13 in the league.
After the Eagles scored three early runs in the top of the first inning, SV responded with two in the bottom half of the inning to make the score 3-2. After Chris Perkovich reached on a missed pop-up by the third baseman, Michael Craig doubled to left center, moving Perkovich up to third base. An ensuing wild pitch scored Perkovich for the first run and moved Craig to third. Two batters later, Kyle Kaufmann came up and ripped his first of three hits on the afternoon, scoring Craig with the second run.
The teams traded runs in the second inning, with SVSU getting its run on a Connor Foley single that plated Dylin Eschenburg. The scoreboard would read 4-3 after two complete innings.
The big blow for the Cardinals came in the bottom of the third inning as the home squad went for seven runs to take a 10-4 lead. Tyler Schwanz, Eschenburg, Richard Guglielmi, Foley, Craig, Kaufmann and Luke Valutis all had an RBI in the inning.
SV would add another run in the fourth inning as Guglielmi hit his first-career home run, a shot that cleared the fence just to the left of the 370 sign in left-center. That blast made the score 11-4.
The Eagles added a run in the top of the seventh inning to cut the deficit to 11-5.
The Cards plated three more in the bottom half of the inning. A Dennis Kan sacrifice fly scored Brad Schalk and Schwanz followed with his first-ever home run as well, a two-run shot to right field that scored Kaufmann. That blow made the score 14-5.
Ashland would score one in the top of the ninth, but the damage had been done and the Cardinals closed things out for the eight run victory, 14-6.
Andrew Geese picked-up his fifth victory of the season, pitching 7.0 innings while allowing five runs and striking-out two batters.
Kaufmann was 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs for SVSU. Schwanz had two hits, two runs and three RBIs while Foley and Guglielmi each had a pair of hits and two RBIs. Eschenburg was the fifth SVSU hitter to register multiple hits, as he had two knocks, a pair of runs scored and an RBI.
Saginaw Valley now finds itself in sixth place in the GLIAC standings heading into its doubleheader with Ashland Sunday (May 4) to close-out the 2014 regular season. The top six teams make the league postseason tournament. Sunday will be senior day at the SVSU Baseball Complex, as the team will honor its three seniors prior to the games with the Eagles.
