PNW Baseball defeats Cleary, 9-0, 9-4 Tuesday Afternoon

HAMMOND, Ind. – The Purdue University Northwest baseball team earned a pair of victories over non-league opponent Cleary University Tuesday afternoon.

The Pride (25-15) shutout the Cougars (17-25-1) in game one, 9-0, before picking up a 9-4 win in the nightcap.

Game 1: PNW 9, Cleary 0

The Pride capitalized on an error from the cougars in the first inning, taking a 1-0 lead before Luke Schmidt (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake South) plated Austin Kordik (West Chicago, Ill./Community) in the bottom of the second to take a 2-0 advantage.

 Cody Moskovsky (St. John, Ind./Bishop Noll) singled to right field to score Hunter Thorn (Portage, Ind./Portage), with Brock Crews (Manteno, Ill./Manteno) following up with an RBI-double to put the Pride ahead 4-0 in the bottom of the third.

 PNW would keep the bats alive in the fifth inning, after another RBI-single from Crews put the Pride up 5-0.

 Tyler Garzinski (Avon, Ind./Plainfield) would rip a 3-RBI double in the left center gap which extended the Black and Gold’s advantage to 8-0.

 Crews would record a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth for his third RBI of the game, giving the Pride their last run and capping off a 9-0 victory.

 Willie Bennett (Santee, Calif./West Hills) picked up his second win of the season, throwing four shutout innings while scattering three hits.

 Josh Arnold (Lowell, Ind./Lowell) and Brett Shoults (Oxford, Ind./Benton Central) would shut down the Cougars in relief, with Arnold throwing a pair of scoreless frames and Shoults recording one strikeout in one scoreless inning.

 Game 2: PNW 9, Cleary 4

The second game was much like the first, with the Pride jumping ahead early 3-0 after three innings of work.

 Hunter Thorn would jumpstart a six-run fifth inning with a 2-RBI single to left field which plated Mike Mikulich (Hebron, Ind./Hebron) and Tyler Crussen (Wheeler, Ind./Wheeler).

The Pride would allow two runs in each of the final two innings, but held on to earn the sweep over the Cougars.

 Freshman Tristan Hesser (Dyer, Ind./Boone Grove) earned his first career victory for the Pride, throwing 5.1 innings of work, allowing just one run on two hits while striking out two.

Zac Hernandez (Hebron, Ind./Hebron) and Brett Shoults would enter the game in relief and finish off the Cougars.

 The Black and Gold return to action tomorrow, April 26, when the Pride travel to Elgin, Ill. for a Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader with Judson University starting at 4 p.m. (CT).