Box Score
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Saint John's baseball opened the MIAC Tournament with a 6-3 win over St. Olaf on Thursday, May 9, at CHS Field in St. Paul.
The Johnnies (29-11, 13-7 MIAC) advance to the winners' bracket and face Gustavus Adolphus at 3 p.m. Friday, May 10, at CHS Field.
SJU scored all six runs in the first three innings and senior
Jake Dickmeyer (Woodbury, Minn.) held the MIAC's top hitting team - .335 overall and .339 in conference play – to five hits, three of which came in the ninth inning.
The 2018 MIAC Pitcher of the Year, Dickmeyer retired the first 13 batters until a one-out, full-count walk in the top of the fifth inning. He induced a flyball for the second out of the inning, but Ryan Torbenson cranked the first pitch he saw over the right-field wall – the Oles' first hit – to cut the deficit to 6-2.
Dickmeyer became SJU's all-time leader in innings pitched (213.2) with the first out of the third inning, a flyout to senior left fielder
Jack Wingerd (St. Paul, Minn./Cretin-Derham Hall).
Senior center fielder
Max Jackson (St. Paul, Minn./Cretin-Derham Hall) and junior third baseman
Jack Schramel (St. Cloud, Minn./Cathedral) cracked back-to-back, one-out hits in the bottom of the first inning before junior designated hitter
Joey Stock (Cold Spring, Minn./Saint John's Prep) crushed an opposite-field, three-run homer. The blast, his 12th of the season, set a new SJU single-season record.
Schramel made it 4-0 with an RBI groundout in the bottom of the second inning and junior shortstop
Michael Gruber (Glenwood, Minn./Minnewaska Area) extended the Johnnies' lead to 6-0 with his first collegiate home run – a two-out, two-run blast – in the bottom of the third.
The Oles (26-14, 13-7 MIAC) threatened with a leadoff double to start the eighth inning, but Dickmeyer retaliated with a strikeout and induced two flyouts to end the frame.
STO started the ninth with three straight singles to make it 6-3 before Dickmeyer registered a strikeout looking for the first out. Jackson sprinted nearly 120 feet to the left-center gap to snag a warning-track flyball for the second out and Dickmeyer completed the victory with his seventh strikeout of the game.
The win was Dickmeyer's 20th of his career (20-5 record) and his seventh complete game of the season. He is now 7-2 with a 1.75 ERA in 72 innings pitched this spring.
The Johnnies recorded the six runs on six hits in three innings off the Oles' Sam Westermeyer, who entered the game with a 6-2 record, 2.65 ERA and a .244 opponent batting average in 44.1 innings pitched. Thomas Peterson (9.44 ERA, .394 opponent batting average in 16.2 innings) allowed three hits in five scoreless innings of relief.
SJU's top three batters in the lineup (Ulrich, Jackson, Schramel) collected two hits apiece, while Stock went 1-for-1 thanks to three consecutive intentional walks.
