Article

Baseball Holds Off Gustavus; Win Streaks Hits 11

Danelson's home run in the sixth inning is the difference in Mavericks 8-7 win over the Gusties
by Tyler Buckentine
Issue date: 3/29/07 Section: Mens Sports

With great weather and temperatures in the high 70s last weekend through Monday, MSU baseball coach Dean Bowyer came up with the idea to schedule a game against Gustavus Adolphus for Tuesday afternoon.

"Mike Carroll (Gustavus's head coach) played for me and we played them in the past," Bowyer said. "I realized they didn't have any games this week until Saturday, so I gave him a call to see if he wanted to play.

"We didn't have [the game] scheduled because it's early in the year and we didn't think the weather was going to be good. We were outside Friday and Monday and it was just gorgeous."

The weather was anything but gorgeous on an overcast and blustery afternoon at the MSU Baseball Complex where Zach Danelson's solo home run was the difference to an 8-7 MSU victory.

It was the first meeting between the two teams since 2005, when the Mavericks beat the Gusties 22-4. With the victory, MSU is 19-4 overall and 2-0 in the NCC with the current win streak at 11 games.

The Mavericks took a 3-1 lead in the third inning and added another run in the fourth. In the top of the fifth, Gustavus scored five runs off MSU pitcher Pat Lenton to take the lead. Spencer Campion lifted a pitch to right field where the wind carried it over the fence for a two-run home run to cap the inning and make it 7-4.

In the bottom of the sixth, Dan Woodall hit a double off the left-field wall to score Jay Bresnahan to make the score 7-6. Woodall would score on a fielder's choice to tie the game. Then, with two outs, Danelson slugged his third home run of the season over the center-field fence to put the Mavericks ahead for good.

"We had one bad inning, but other than that, pitching was good and we're playing good defense," said Bowyer, who still isn't completely satisfied with his team's performance at the plate. "Hitting wasn't as good. We're struggling right now, trying to hit the ball too far.

Bowyer was pleased with the way his team bunted. Three of MSU's ten hits were bunts.

"The bunts really impressed me the most. We're doing the little things that help us win ball games. We usually aren't going to score a lot of runs, but we have good speed to generate runs and that's what we did yesterday."

The Mavericks will travel to Des Moines, Iowa on Friday for a doubleheader with Grandview College.

"We threw seven pitchers against Gustavus, so our top two guys will go Friday against Grandview," Bowyer said.

Tyler Buckentine is the Reporter Assistant Sports Editor