Index of Sports Press Releases

April 21, 2008

Weekend split leaves Tigers fighting for
postseason baseball positioning
The Daily Republic

DWU leftfielder Ryan Santiago can’t come up with a deep fly ball during the sixth inning of game one against Briar Cliff Saturday at Cadwell Park. (Matt Higgins/Republic)

Starting pitcher Chris Baker got the Dakota Wesleyan baseball team off to a strong start to a busy weekend on Saturday afternoon at Cadwell Park, pitching his team to a 5-1 victory over Briar Cliff, the GPAC’s second-place team.

But as the weekend wore on, clutch hits eluded the Tigers, who once again struggled with runners in scoring position, eventually settling for a 2-2 split on the weekend. Briar Cliff came back to beat the Tigers 5-0 in game two on Saturday, and DWU split a doubleheader Sunday at Dana College. Dana won the opener 4-3 in extra innings, but DWU rallied to win the second game, 12-8.

Still, Tigers’ coach Adam Neisius wasn’t especially pleased with the split, saying his team needed to go 3-1 to improve its postseason positioning.

“Looking ahead to this weekend, I thought 3-1 was very doable,” Neisius said. “That would have put us in a heck of a lot better spot standings wise. Now we’re kind of fighting for our postseason lives.”

The Tigers, now 10-10 in the GPAC, currently sit in seventh place in the GPAC, which puts them in position to make the eight-team tournament field. However the Tigers can’t get too cozy, because right behind them is Doane (9-11) and Mt. Marty (8-10).

“In my ten years here, we’ve never missed the playoffs,” Neisius said. “I think the lowest we’ve ever finished is fourth or fifth. But we have our work cut out for us.”

Neisius said the offensive struggles with men on base was the same story as it’s been all year for his team. Instead of riding the momentum of a first game win over Briar Cliff, the bats went away in game two as Briar Cliff starter Charlie Benz went all seven innings, scattering six hits and striking out five without walking a hitter.

However, Baker was nearly as effective for the Tigers in the first game, going six innings, allowing five hits and only one earned run while striking out seven. He improved to 6-2 on the year.

“He’s been pitching extremely well for about the past month,” Neisius said. “He pretty much handled Briar Cliff for six innings. … I wouldn’t be surprised, with a good outing Thursday, if he’s the conference pitcher of the year.”

In the opening game Sunday at Dana, DWU rallied for three runs in the fifth to take a 3-2 lead. However, Dana was able to tie the game in the seventh on a two-out RBI double.

The Tigers put runners on base in the top of the eighth, but as was the story for much of the weekend, failed to produce a clutch hit. Dana was able to win the game with a single run in the bottom of the eighth.

The Tigers erupted for 12 runs in a 12-8 victory over Dana in the second game, but Neisius said he still would have liked to have seen more from his offense.

“They ran a lot of pitchers at us in second game,” he said. “We finally got a couple hits with guys in scoring position, but we still stranded a lot of runners though. It probably should have been 18-8. It’s pretty frustrating that we can’t get guys in from third base with less than two outs.”

The Tigers will return to action Tuesday with a game at 3 p.m. at South Dakota State. Then they will hit the road to close the regular season with a pair of ultra-important GPAC doubleheaders. DWU will be at the University of Sioux Falls on Thursday starting at 5 p.m., and will finish the season Saturday at Mount Marty beginning at 2 p.m.