Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 The Middlebury baseball team dropped its first two games to Saint John's (Minn.) in Arizona to open its annual spring break trip. The Johnnies took game one by a 12-4 score as the teams played a pair of seven-inning games, and followed that up tripping up the Panthers in the nightcap, 17-9. Saint John's (9-6) was playing its 14th and 15th games of the spring. Middlebury returns to the diamond Sunday for games against Carthage and Valley City State.
Trailing 1-0 in the opener, Middlebury struck for three runs in the bottom of the third inning. Alex Deutsch singled up the middle and Dylan Sinnickson followed that up with a home run to left. Johnny Read singled up the middle and reached second on a Saint John's fielding error. Read came around to score when Jason Lock singled through the right side.
The Panthers maintained that 3-1 advantage until the top of the sixth when the Johnnies exploded for nine runs on five hits and were aided by two errors. Saint John's tacked on two runs in the seventh for a 12-3 lead. Middlebury added a run in the home half of the seventh as Ryan Rizzo laced a leadoff single through the left side and came around to score on a Sinnickson groundout.
Lock went 2-3 at the plate for the Panthers with an RBI, while Sinnickson was 1-4 with 3 RBI and a run scored. Starting pitcher Eric Truss suffered the loss allowing six runs on eight hits with three walks and five strikeouts in 5.1 innings.
Saint John's starter Derek Graves went the distance allowing four runs, three earned, on eight hits with three strikeouts and a walk.
In their second game, the Panthers jumped on the scoreboard early with six runs on six hits in the top of the first inning, highlighted by Sinnickson's leadoff homerun and two-run single. The Johnnies responded with two runs in the bottom half of the frame off Middlebury starter Robert Erickson. The Panthers tacked on a single run in the top of the second on an RBI single by Raj Palekar scoring Max Araya, who smacked a base hit earlier in the inning.
Trailing 7-2, the Johnnies scored three in the second, nine in the third and three more in the fourth and never looked back in the win. Middlebury tallied a run in the fifth on Sinnickson's second round-tripper of the game and third in the day with a solo blast to left-center field, along with an unearned run in the seventh for the final score.
Sinnickson went 4-5 in game two with two homeruns and four RBI. Araya was 3-5 with two runs scored, while Andrew Corcoran went 2-4.
