Luther's Big Fourth Inning Dooms Spartans
May 2, 2017
DECORAH, Iowa – After a quick 2-0 lead, the University of Dubuque baseball team surrendered nine unanswered runs to Luther and could not come back, falling 10-5.
After Spartan pitcher Jacob Padilla, shut down the Luther offense last week throwing eight strong innings and allowing no earned runs, Tuesday afternoon was a different story. This time, Padilla was only able to last 2.1 inning and allowed three runs, two of which were earned. Luther got to every UD pitcher on the afternoon, hitting Derek Erwin for five runs over 1.1 inning and two truns over 4.1 innings off of Trent Van Egtern.
Things looked promising for the Spartans after the first inning when Thomas Kempf began the scoring with a single brining home Austin McWhite on a Norse error and Marquis Dew added an RBI single later. However, UD was not able to plate anymore runs and stranded two runners on base.
Luther evened things up in the bottom of the third with two runs of their and their bats broke loose in fourth inning with six runs on seven hits.
The Spartans tried chipping away at the deficit beginning in the fifth, scoring two runs an Austin McWhite groundout RBI and Norse error. UD was able to add another in the seventh but could not manage anything else. The Spartans had their chances but left seven runners on base throughout the game.
UD finishes out the regular season at Wartburg this weekend with game one of the series being at 6:00 p.m. in Waverly. The Spartans need one win to clinch at least the two seed in the Iowa Conference Tournament next weekend.
