DAVENPORT, Fla. — The UW-River Falls baseball team fell 6-5 against the University of Minnesota Morris on Friday during its second of six games at the RussMatt Invitational.
Coming off an exciting season-opening win yesterday, the Falcons got off to strong start before the bats went cold as the Cougars held the Falcons scoreless in the final four innings.
UWRF took an early 3-0 in the second inning, beginning with a
JV Castillo double that brought home
Kaleb Zabielski. A wild pitch then allowed
Parker Behling to score, and
Max Krebs added another run with an RBI groundout. However, the Cougars responded the next half inning, tying the game at 3-3 in the third.
The Falcons answered in the bottom half of the third to regain the lead with a sacrifice fly, this time from Zabielski, scoring
Max Stocco, who reached third on a triple. UWRF then managed to earn a 5-3 lead in the fifth with another sacrifice fly, this time with Stocco driving in
Tanner Hraby.
Connor Weltzien started in the mound for the Falcons and pitched four innings with a trio of strikeouts, allowing three earned runs. He was relieved by
Vaughn Johnson in the fifth, and the following inning the Cougars scored the eventual game-winning run, plating three runs off two hits and a Falcon error to take a 6-5 lead, an advantage they held onto for the rest of the game.
UMM relief pitcher Brady Kenning stymied the Falcon batters, tossing three hitless innings up until the Falcons threatened in the bottom of the ninth.
Kole Paulsen pinch hit to lead off the inning and singled to center, followed by a Krebs bunt single, and another hit from
Cade Bruett to load the bases. David Steffen then came into pitch for the Cougars to and sent the Falcons down with three outs in a row to pick up the save.
Bruett and Hraby led the Falcons with two hits each.
Dillon Carrell closed out the game with three scoreless innings of relief on the mound.
The Falcons, now 1-1 overall, faces Rutgers-Newark tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. (ET) in Winter Haven, Fla.
