Box Score

COLD SPRING, Minn. – Saint John's opened the four-team, double-elimination MIAC Playoffs with a 1-0 loss to St. Thomas on Thursday, May 11, at Cold Spring Baseball Park in Cold Spring.

The Johnnies (25-12 overall) will play top-seeded Bethel (31-9 overall), which lost to fourth-seeded Macalester (24-15 overall) 5-3 Friday night, in an elimination game at 3 p.m. Friday, May 12, in Cold Spring. The Tommies (26-14 overall), meanwhile, will face Mac at 3 p.m. Friday at SJU's Becker Park with a trip to Championship Saturday on the line.

The lone run of the game scored on a two-out, wild pitch in the bottom of the sixth inning. UST's Jake Smith doubled to right field with one out and advanced to third on a deep flyout to center field. Sophomore Jake Dickmeyer (Woodbury, Minn.) attempted to entice the Tommies' leading hitter, Sam Cobbs (.388 average), with a breaking ball in the dirt but the 1-2 pitch found its way to the backstop to plate Smith. Dickmeyer struck out Cobbs swinging on the next pitch to end the inning.

SJU left six men on base and batted 1-for-10 with runners on, including 0-for-4 with a runner in scoring position, on the night. The one-run loss, a nine-inning game that lasted 1:44, was the Johnnies' sixth of the season.

Dickmeyer allowed three hits and struck out four, with no walks, in seven innings of work. He is now 6-2 on the year with a 2.25 ERA, .220 opponent batting average and has not issued a walk in 64 innings pitched.

Sophomore centerfielder Max Jackson (St. Paul, Minn./Cretin-Derham Hall) collected both of SJU's hits on the night, a line drive up the middle in the third inning and a deep double to the left-center gap in the sixth inning. He was thrown out at third base, following the double, when junior first baseman Jeron Terres' (Cold Spring, Minn./Rocori) hot shot back up the middle was snagged on a hop by UST's Drew Molin.

Molin improved to 5-1 with the complete-game shutout. He struck out 10 and issued three free passes, two hit batsmen and a ninth-inning walk, and tossed 100 pitches.

Freshman outfielder Wyatt Ulrich's (Indus, Minn./International Falls) hit streak came to an end at 27 games with a 0-for-4 performance.