Doubleheader does not go Mustangs' way

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 The Master's lost a pair of baseball games Saturday to the Jessup Warriors 7-5 and 15-7 at Lou Herwaldt Stadium.

The Mustangs (17-12, 5-10) won the first game of the series Friday, but the doubleheader sweep by the Warriors on Saturday gives the series win to the Warriors.

"We're banged up," said TMU Head Coach Monte Brooks. "It's hard to compete when you've got a lot of injuries."

The loss puts TMU in sixth place out of the seven teams in the GSAC. Jessup moves into first place.


Game 1

A solo home run and a wild pitch were the differences in the first game of the doubleheader with the Jessup Warriors getting the 7-5 win over The Master's.

The home run came in the top of the seventh, breaking up what was then a 5-5 tie. The Warriors added the insurance run in the eighth, scoring on a wild pitch.

After giving up a run in the top of the first, The Master's was able to get to Jessup's starting pitcher Anthony Perez, who hit the first two batters he faced and walked the next two. Ty Beck's free pass scored Cason Brownell for the first run of the game.

After a strikeout for the first out of the inning, Gage Webster smacked a single to center to score Ryan Mathiesen. Conor Christiansen then hit a liner to centerfield, which was caught. But Austin Young was tagging and scored to make it a 3-0 lead for TMU.

Jessup answered in the top of the second with two more to tie it at 3-3.

The Master's took the lead back in the bottom of the third when Tommy Gwinn's sac fly to center scored a tagging Beck.

But again the Warriors, ranked No. 9 in the latest NAIA Top 25 poll, answered in the top of the fourth. A 2-run home run put Jessup back on top 5-4.

Then the Mustangs, receiving votes for the Top 25 poll, responded in their half of the fourth when Young's single to right scored Brownell to tie it at 5-5.

That's how the score stayed until the game-winning home run in the top of the seventh for the Warriors.

"We beat ourselves in that first game," Brooks said. "We made some big mistakes and that hurt us. But we were in it, in it with a chance to win it."

Carson Knapp got the start for TMU, going 6.0 innings, giving up five runs (two earned) on five hits and striking out three. He was relieved by Nolan Inouye, who took the loss, for 1.1 innings, followed by Ryan Shalkevich for 1.2 innings.

Ryan Mathiesen finished 3 for 3 with a run scored, and Conor Christiansen was 2 for 4 with an RBI. As a team the Mustangs had nine hits.


Game 2

Four home runs, two wild pitches and a run-scoring error helped do in The Master's in game two of their series against Jessup, losing 15-7.

The Warriors had home runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings that plated five runs, with the error happening in the fourth for another run, to go up 6-0.

Going into the bottom half of the fifth, the Mustangs had only been able to get one hit. But that changed when Cason Brownell hit his third home run of the season, followed immediately by Ryan Mathiesen's tenth bomb, to cut the difference to 6-2. 

Jessup broke out the bats in the sixth when an RBI single, two wild pitches and two hit batters with the bases loaded scored five to go up 11-2.

But in The Master's half of the sixth, a Christiansen sac fly, an RBI single by Matt Lloyd to score Owen Payn, and a 3-run home run by Mathiesen, his second of the game, put five on the board for TMU to once again make it a 4-run deficit.

In the seventh and final inning, a passed ball, a bases load walk, a groundout and another wild pitch put four more runs on the board for Jessup. The Mustangs could not respond in their last at-bats, losing 15-7.

"We got behind [in the second game] and didn't recover," Brooks said. "We've just got to play better, better as a team. Some individuals had some good games, and I was encouraged by that."

Mathiesen finished the game 3 for 4, 6 for 7 on the day, with the two home runs and four RBI. The junior leads the team with 11 roundtrippers and 36 runs batted in.

The Master's will host a non-conference game Tuesday against future GSAC opponent Saint Katherine. First pitch is set for 3:30 at Lou Herwaldt Stadium.