Game 1 Box Score |
Game 2 Box Score
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Saint John's baseball batted .111 (6-for-54) in a pair of losses, 5-1 and 2-1, at St. Thomas on Saturday, April 10, in St. Paul.
The doubleheader sweep for the Tommies (12-3, 7-0 MIAC) snapped SJU's seven-game win streak in the series. The Johnnies (11-6, 1-5 MIAC) had won 12 of the previous 15 meetings entering the twin bill.
The Johnnies were 2-for-17 (.118) with runners on base, including 0-for-8 with men in scoring position, and totaled 25 strikeouts at the plate in 16 innings of offense.
Sophomore southpaw
Casey Trapp (Blaine, Minn./Centennial) pitched a gem in game two, but took the loss. He struck out eight and surrendered two unearned runs on three hits in eight innings pitched.
Game 1
SJU mustered only two hits, both from junior catcher
Ethan Roe (Golden Valley, Minn./Blake), off the Tommies' Andrew Tri in game one. Tri entered the contest with a 0.44 ERA, .167 opponent batting average and 33 strikeouts in 20.2 innings pitched and finished with 11 punchouts Saturday.
UST gained a 1-0 lead on an RBI, bloop single with two outs in the bottom of the second inning. The runner who scored reached on a supposed one-out walk. Junior
Nathan Brandecker's (South St. Paul, Minn.) full-count pitch was a beautiful breaking ball and the Johnnies fired the ball around the horn believing it was strike three and the second out. The pitch, however, was called a ball.
The Tommies tacked on four runs in the bottom of the sixth. Three of the four runs came on a bases-clearing triple, which was a knuckling line drive that got past freshman
Jack Schleper (Shakopee, Minn.) in left field, and UST added a sacrifice fly in the next at-bat.
The Johnnies scored an unearned run on a wild pitch and had runners on first and second with nobody out in the top of the seventh, but Tri recorded back-to-back strikeouts and a groundball out to end the game.
Brandecker posted a career-high eight strikeouts but suffered the loss (0-2 record), allowing the five runs on eight hits in 5.1 innings. Freshman
Kody Dalen (Carver, Minn./Chanhassen) induced the sac fly and left a runner, who reached on a three-base throwing error, on third.
Game 2
The Tommies built a 2-0 lead with an unearned run in the second and third innings. The game's first run scored when junior right-fielder
Soren Roe (Golden Valley, Minn./Blake) slipped and dropped what would have been the third out and the second was a leadoff double who crossed the plate on a two-out passed ball in the third inning.
Ethan Roe doubled to start the fifth inning, moved to third on a sac bunt from freshman third baseman
Joe Becker (New Prague, Minn.) and scored on an RBI groundout from his twin brother, Soren.
Trapp is now 0-1 with a 0.63 ERA, .089 opponent batting average and 16 strikeouts in 14.1 innings against St. Thomas in 2021. He is a tough-luck 0-3 with a 2.13 ERA, .170 opponent batting average and a team-leading 31 strikeouts in 25.1 innings this season.
UST's Graham Laubscher went the distance, allowing the lone run on four hits with 14 strikeouts.
The Johnnies wrap up the three-game series against the Tommies with a nine-inning game at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 11, at Becker Park.
