PNW Baseball Captures Regular Season Finale Against #20 Ashland Sunday
HAMMOND, Ind. — The Purdue University Northwest baseball team finished their regular season on a high note heading into the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament as the Pride defeated Ashland, 7-3, at Laborers’ Local 41 Field inside Dowling Park, Sunday.
Ashland struck first in the top of the second inning after a PNW error to make it 1-0.
Anthony Agne (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield North) gave the Pride a 2-1 lead the following inning after connecting on his second home run of the season over the left field fence.
PNW came through and added a crooked number with four runs to open up the game in the fifth inning. Kevin McCune (Munster, Ind./Andrean) flew into a sacrifice fly to center field which scored Agne.
Austin Kordik (West Chicago, Ill./Community) ripped a two-run triple to the left center cap which scored Ray Hansen (Chicago, Ill./St. Rita) and Agne to make it 5-1. Swinging at the first pitch was Darius Kendall (Merrillville, Ind./Merrillville) who had an RBI single right outside the reach of the third basemen, scoring Kordik, expanding the lead to 6-1.
The Eagles bounced back and added one back the following inning to cut it to 6-2 PNW after a pitch hit single to right center. Couple innings later, AU made it 6-3 after a sacrifice fly.
Getting an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth were the Pride after Ray Hilbrich (Schererville, Ind./Lake Central) scored on a wild pitch.
AU looked to rally in the ninth inning after adding one run back to make it 7-4. However, Brendan Kelly (Grandville, Mich./Grandville) came in and got out of the jam to record the save.
Alex Batistatos (Hobart, Ind./Hobart) recorded the win (3-4) on the mound, after going 7.1 innings, allowing three runs (one earned), giving up one hit, issuing three walks and striking out nine.
PNW returns to the field and will enter the GLIAC Tournament as the No. 5 seed taking on No. 2 seed Wayne State on Thursday, May 9 starting at 9:30 a.m. CT.