PNW Baseball Earns Two Wins Over Calumet St. Joseph Saturday

HAMMOND, Ind. – The Purdue University Northwest baseball team picked up a pair of wins over Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference opponent Calumet St. Joseph Saturday Afternoon.

The Pride (22-15, 15-6 CCAC) earned a 2-1 victory over the Crimson Wave (5-41-1, 0-22 CCAC) before picking up a 4-1 victory in Game 2.

The Pride return to action tomorrow, April, 23, when they travel to Whiting, Ind. for one 9-innning game against Calumet St. Joseph starting at noon.

GAME 2: PNW 4, CCSJ 1
After three scoreless innings to start off the contest, PNW took a 2-0 lead thanks to an RBI-single from Jake Lindeman (Crown Point, Ind./Crown Point) followed by an RBI-groundout by Cody Moskovsky (St. John, Ind./Bishop Noll).

A failed pick off attempt from the catcher helped move Avondre Harris (Mishawaka, Ind./Mishawaka) to third base, who later scored on a groundout from Mike Mikulich (Hebron, Ind./Hebron) which put the Pride up 3-0.

Albers would walk with the bases loaded to put the Pride ahead 4-0, with the Black and Gold allowing just one run in the final innings to pick up the 4-1 win.

Fabian Del Real (Calumet City, Ill./T.F. North) picked up his second win of the season after throwing six scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts.  

Alex Batistatos (Hobart, Ind./Hobart) entered the game in relief and threw two innings allowing one run while Brody Kutch (La Porte, Ind./La Porte) notched his fourth save of the season, shutting down the Crimson Wave in the ninth.

GAME 1: PNW 2, CCSJ 1 
Sophomore Josh Arnold (Lowell, Ind./Lowell) threw his first complete game of the season and gave up just one earned run to lead the Pride to an opening-game win Saturday. 

The left-hander scattered five hits, all singles, struck out two and walked just one in the seven-inning effort. 

PNW struck early in the game with two outs in the bottom of the first, when Tyler Crussen Wheeler, Ind./Wheeler) walked and then scored on a Hunter Thorn (Portage, Ind./Portage) RBI double to right center to make it 1-0 Pride. PNW would add its final run in the second frame, which started with Jonny Albers (Waterloo, Ill./Waterloo) reaching base after being hit by a pitch and then moving into scoring position by an Avondre Harris (Mishawaka, Ind./Mishawaka) bunt single. 

Luke Schmidt (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake South) then moved the two runners one more base on a sacrifice to set up Austin Kordik’s (West Chicago, Ill./Community) RBI flyout. 

CCSJ got on the board in the sixth, loading the bases with nobody out. But Arnold forced the next three batters into flyouts — one of them an RBI by Sebastian Caballero — to minimize the damage. 

Senior Cody Moskovsky (St. John, Ind./Bishop Noll) finished 2-for-3 and six other Purdue Northwest batters tallied hits, with Thorn recording a double. 

Rudy Medina led the Crimson Wave with two hits (2-for-2) while starter Justin Kortlang was credited with the loss, striking out one, walking one and allowing two hits and two earned runs in his two-inning stint. ​