ST. PAUL, Minn.- The University of Northwestern Baseball team continued to swing hot bats at the plate on Wednesday night against North Central. The Eagles' offense fired on all cylinders as they won the game 23-5.
The Eagles' offense came primarily from two big innings. The first of these high scoring innings came in the second. The Eagles' would score eight runs in the inning, and the highlight came off of the bat of
Ben Spores (Arlington, Wash./Arlington). Spores stepped up to the plate in a scoreless ballgame, but launched a ball deep to left field. The ball would go over the fence for Spores' first career homerun, and the Eagles led 3-0.
The Eagles would add one run in the bottom of the third inning, and that came off of a RBI single from
Payton Christenson (St. Croix Falls, Wis./St. Croix Falls) that would score
Ben Spores (Arlington, Wash./Arlington). This Eagle run came after North Central scored two runs in the top half of the frame. The Rams' offense would find its groove and score two more runs in the fourth, and one run in the fifth.
The Eagles led 9-5 going into the bottom half of the sixth inning. The sixth inning would become the second explosive inning of the night for the home team. The Eagles scored an impressive 14 runs in the inning, to extend their league to 23-5, which would be the final score. It was a complete team effort to put up this crooked number as eight different Eagles had run scoring hits in the sixth inning.
There were a lot of performances from the Eagles' offense that deserve recognition.
Ben Spores (Arlington, Wash./Arlington) led the Eagles with four runs batted in on the night.
Payton Christenson (St. Croix Falls, Wis./St. Croix Falls) was a tough out in the leadoff spot for UNW, going 4-5, scoring 3 runs, and driving in 3 runs.
Bryce Crabb (Des Moines, Iowa/Grand View Christian) was 3-5 at the plate, scored 3 runs, and had 2 RBIs.
Keegan Vercoe (Queen Creek, Ariz./Poston Butte) also scored 3 runs while driving in 2 having gone 2-4 at the plate.
Daniel Peterson (Burlington, Wis./Burlington) was 1-1 at the plate and drove in 3 runs.
Brayden Bryson (New Orleans, La./De La Salle) got the start on the mound for UNW and pitched 3.2 innings. Bryson had 4 strikeouts in the game.
Noah Skarda (Nipomo, Calif./St. Joseph's) would come in and pitch 2.1 innings of relief while not giving up an earned run, and
Brandon Welch (Rogers, Minn./Rogers) would finish things off on the mound by pitching a clean seventh inning.
The Eagles move to 6-2 in conference play and will now begin preparing for a very important conference series this weekend. UNW will travel to Mankato to play three games, starting on Friday, with Bethany Lutheran this weekend. For live updates to this weekend's games, follow @UNWBaseball on Twitter.
