Looking for a measuring stick to see where it wants to go, The Master’s University baseball team just needs to look north to Idaho.
Actually, all it had to do Wednesday afternoon was look across the diamond. There the Mustangs found 18-time champion and top-ranked Lewis-Clark State, the baseball program by which all NAIA teams are measured.
For seven innings on a gray, cool afternoon the No. 11 Mustangs stayed with the Warriors. In fact, they led 2-1 through seven before the defending national champions rallied with a run in the eighth inning and two more in the ninth to beat TMU 4-2.
The loss dropped the Mustangs to 5-4.
The Mustangs rocked the Warriors back on their heels in the last of the first inning, piecing together a walk, two singles, and a sacrifice fly to move ahead 2-0. Aaron Shackelford started it with a leadoff walk, moved to second base on Max Maitland’s single, and scored on Michael Sexton’s rbi single. Maitland, who raced to third on Sexton’s base hit, scored moments later on David Sheaffer’s sacrifice fly to left field.
The club didn’t score again, however, that two-run advantage held up through the first four frames as sophomore Robert Winslow and junior transfer Nate Bonsell combined to shut out the Warriors on three hits.
That all changed in the fifth inning when the Warriors sandwiched two singles around a base-advancing ground out to halve the deficit.
There was no answer by the Mustangs, who managed just one hit after the first inning. They did leave Sexton stranded at third base in the fifth after he tripled with one out.
The Warriors, though, were not finished. After freshman Aiden Stout threw two scoreless innings to preserve the one-run lead, L-C State picked on senior reliever Danny Lutz to tie the game in the eighth. Using three singles, the Warriors evened things up at 2-2.
Then, in the ninth, the Warriors nicked junior Scott Savage (0-2) for the go-ahead runs, the first of those unearned, on a two-out, two-run single.
That proved to be the margin of victory as the Mustangs went quietly in the ninth.
Following the game, Mustang head coach Monte Brooks said, “It was a great start for us but ultimately we fell short in the end to a highly-talented team.”
This game was a valuable tune-up for the Mustangs, who head into GSAC play on Friday when they open a three-game series against Hope International in Fullerton.
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