UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. – The Saginaw Valley State University baseball program hosted Hillsdale College Wednesday afternoon for their second game in as many days. The Cardinals (11-4) defeated the Chargers (4-9) with a final score of 10-4.
Colin Cornwell boosted his average going 4-for-5 while Brandon Scheurer and Hayden Jatczak posted three-hit games along with scoring three runs each. Schuerer and Austin Schweiger tied for the team lead in RBI with two each. The Cardinals used four pitchers and struck out 14 batters. Jatczak (W, 2-0) pitched five innings allowing one unearned run on two hits with seven strikeouts while batting second and going 3-for-4.
Saginaw Valley took the lead in the first and never looked back. Scheurer blasted his first home run of the season on the second pitch of the inning to take a 1-0 lead. Jatczak followed up with a double and Col. Cornwell singled him to third before Schweiger drove home the second run of the inning with a sacrifice fly. Col. Cornwell took advantage of some pitching miscues moving to third and scoring on two wild pitches to make it 3-0. In the second Jaccar Watkins walked, stole second, and scored on two wild pitches as well to make it 4-0. All four runs went to the Chargers starter, Daly Skees (L, 0-3) who pitched one inning allowing four runs on three hits and a walk.
Hillsdale got their lone run against Jatczak in the fourth with an RBI single to cut the lead to three. Schweiger responded in the bottom of the inning with another sacrifice fly, this one scoring Scheurer. Austin Cicerone also hit a sacrifice fly and Col. Cornwell tacked on another run with an RBI single to make it 7-1 SVSU.
Steven Hecht took over in the sixth for Saginaw Valley and pitched two innings allowing two runs on four hits and struck out two batters. A run scoring triple in the sixth and an RBI single in the seventh for Hillsdale slashed the Cardinal lead to four. SVSU responded with three runs in the bottom of the seventh with an RBI single by Schuerer and Jatczak followed by an RBI double by Col. Cornwell to make it 10-3.
The two-way player action continued with the Cardinals after Jatczak started. Scheuer started at second base and moved to the mound in the eighth inning. He struck out all three batters he faced before handing the ball off to Reed Raymond who started in left field. Raymond pitched the ninth inning allowing one run on two hits and struck out two Chargers to end the game.
With the win, Saginaw Valley baseball splits the two midweek games against Hillsdale. They continue the non-conference games when they host their rivals from Midland on Tuesday, March 17. The Northwood Timberwolves head to SVSU with first pitch set for 3:00 PM EST.
