The South Dakota State baseball team split a pair of games with St. Thomas over the weekend.
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OMAHA — The South Dakota State baseball team split a pair of games with St. Thomas over the weekend.
The series was moved to Omaha due to the weather and the final game of the series was canceled due to the weather as well.
South Dakota State right-hander Nic McCay wrote another chapter in his comeback story by pitching eight shutout innings Friday in a 1-0 Jackrabbit victory over St. Thomas in the opening game of a Summit League baseball series at Tal Anderson Field.
McCay, who missed three of the last four seasons due to injury, struck out eight while allowing three hits, a walk and a hit batter. The reigning Summit League Peak Pitcher of the Week, McCay retired the first seven Tommie batters he faced and didn’t allow more than one base runner in any inning.
SDSU, which managed only two hits in the game, scored the lone run of the game in the third inning. Jess Bellows led off the inning by being hit by a pitch and moved to second base on a walk to Thatcher Kozal. After both runners successfully executed a double steal, Bellows came across on a sacrifice fly by freshman third baseman Bryce Ronken.
Alex Clemons pitched a perfect bottom of the ninth with a strikeout to notch his third save of the season.
Dawson Parry and Cade Stuff tallied the two Jackrabbit hits, with Parry’s hit a double. Cael Frost, who entered the day with a 19-game hitting streak, went 0-for-3 with a walk to put an end to his streak, which match Tyson Fisher (2006) and Matt Johnson (2016) for the longest streak in a single season in program history during the Division I era (since 2015).
St. Thomas starter Jacob Mrosko took the loss despite striking out eight over 6 1/3 innings.
St. Thomas built a nine-run lead through three innings and defeated South Dakota State, 11-5, Saturday to earn a split of an abbreviated Summit League baseball series played at Tal Anderson Field.
In claiming the final game of a weather-altered two-game set, St. Thomas improved to 8-11 overall and drew even with the Jackrabbits atop the league standings at 4-1. SDSU dropped to 11-12 overall.
The Tommies struck for six unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning — all of which scored after SDSU starter Jake Goble retired the next two hitters after the leadoff batter, Ben Vujovich, reached on an error. A single and walk loaded the bases, which were cleared on a double to center field by Max Nyrop, who later scored on a triple by Joe Vos. Mikey Gottschalk’s bunt single brought home Vos and Gottschalk scored on UST’s fourth consecutive hit, a double by Zan VonSchegell.
UST added a run on a bases-loaded walk in the second inning and tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the third on run-scoring hits by Brigs Richartz and Max Moris.
St. Thomas added single runs in the sixth and seventh innings to put the game out of reach. The sixth-inning run scored on a triple by VonSchlegell, while Moris doubled in the seventh-inning tally.
Six of the Tommies’ 12 hits were for extra bases as four different players recorded two hits each. Frost and Davis Carr each tallied two of SDSU’s nine hits.
Brady Hawkins and Sam Schlecht each pitched two innings of scoreless relief for the Jackrabbits. SDSU’s six pitchers in the game combined for 11 strikeouts and issued nine walks.
Walker Retz struck out six batters in 3 1/3 innings of relief to earn the win for St. Thomas.
Weather-permitting, the Jackrabbits are slated to open the home season with a three-game Summit League series March 28-30 against Northern Colorado. Thursday’s series opener is set for a 3 p.m. first pitch at Erv Huether Field.
