MOORHEAD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College baseball team built a 6-0 lead before Concordia-Moorhead scored the game's final eight runs to grab an 8-6 win in the opening game of the playoff play-in series between the two teams on Saturday afternoon at Bucky Burgau Field.
St. Olaf (12-8) scored in five of its first six innings at the plate on its way to a 6-0 lead through five-and-a-half innings, but Concordia (15-18) plated eight runs between the sixth and eighth innings to pull off the come-from-behind win.
The two teams will finish the best-of-three series on Sunday, May 16 at Mark Almli Field with two nine-inning games starting at 1 p.m. Both games will be played regardless of the result of the first game, with the winner advancing to next week's MIAC Baseball Playoffs.
The Oles jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead when
Andrew Nomoto hit an opposite-field home run to right with two outs in the top of the first for his third home run of the season. St. Olaf doubled its lead in the second when
Sam Lavin started the inning with a double, advanced to third on a ground out, and scored on a fielder's choice off the bat of
Bobby Isbell.
Lavin knocked in two runs of his own to cap a two-out rally in the third. After the first two batters were retired, Nomoto and
Joey Glampe reached on consecutive singles and came around to score on Lavin's double to the gap in right center.
Two-out, run-scoring singles by Glampe and Isbell in the fifth and sixth innings stretched St. Olaf's lead to 6-0 before the Cobbers halved the deficit with three runs in the sixth. The three-run sixth for Concordia marked the end of the day for
Sam Westermeyer, who matched his career high with eight strikeouts and gave up six hits in his six innings of work.
The Cobbers took the lead with a four-run seventh, highlighted by a game-tying three-run home run by Max Boran. Sean McGuire added the go-ahead RBI double later in the inning before Concordia added an unearned insurance run in the eighth.
St. Olaf built a threat in the ninth, getting two-out singles from Nomoto and Glampe to bring Lavin to the plate, but Matt Gruber got Lavin to ground out to end the game.
The Oles out-hit the Cobbers by a 14-10 margin in the game thanks to five multi-hit performances, including three-hit games from Nomoto and Glampe. Nomoto reached base all five times, going 3-for-3 with two walks, two runs, and one RBI.
Matthew Muller, Lavin, and Isbell all had two hits apiece.
