The Dominican University baseball team dropped a Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) doubleheader to the Benedictine University Eagles on Sunday afternoon in Lisle, falling in game one, 3-2, before letting a 3-1 lead slip away in a 4-3 loss in game two.
The losses drop the Stars to 10-20 on the year and 7-9 in the NACC with a pair of conference series remaining for the Stars. The Stars will entertain a pair of non-conference opponents for three games at Schaumburg Boomers Stadium during the week, before heading to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, for a conference series next Saturday.
Game One: Benedictine 3, Dominican 2 Junior lefty
Chance Emlund (Chicago, III.) went the distance for Dominican in the losing effort, conceding just three runs on seven hits and one walk over eight innings while striking out five.
The Eagles did all of their damage against Emlund in the bottom of the third when the left-hander walked the first hitter of the inning and then followed that with a hit batter. After a groundout, Justin Kovalsky tripled to bring home the first two runs of the game. An out later, Mike Ostrowski pushed across Kovalsky with a two-out, RBI single to center.
Emlund allowed just three base runners the rest of the way, retiring nine straight at one point, allowing the Stars' offense to try to chip away at the lead.
Dominican pulled within one in the top of the fourth.
Cody Schuster (Las Vegas, Nev.) started the rally with a one-out single. After a wild pitch, a ground out, and a single,
J.T. Hicks (Albion, Mich.) plated the first run of the game for the Stars with a single to left. After a walk loaded the bases,
Nathaniel Natividad (Oak Lawn, III.), who singled earlier in the inning, scored on a wild pitch to pull the Stars within 3-2. After loading the bases on another walk, the Stars could not tally the tying run, bouncing out to the end the inning.
In the ninth, Dominican's
Lucas McKinney (Arvada, Colo.) reached on a single to center with one out, but the Stars couldn't push across the tying run, stranding their eighth runner of the game.
Natividad went 3-for-4 with a double in the loss while McKinney added a pair of hits of his own.
Game Two: Benedictine 4, Dominican 3 The Stars carried a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but with the rain falling down, walked four hitters and threw a wild pitch before the Eagles walked off with a 4-3 win on Max Oppenheimer's two-run single through the left side of the infield.
Colin Janison (Las Vegas, Nev.) had scattered four hits and three walks through the first eight innings for the Stars before the ninth inning. In the ninth, Janison retired two of the first three hitters of the inning before leaving with the bases loaded, giving way to
Quinten Hayes (Indianapolis, Ind.). Hayes walked in the first run of the inning before going 3-2 on Oppenheimer before surrendering the game-winning hit.
Offensively, Dominican got single runs in the first, fourth and eighth innings.
Dominick Romito (Bloomingdale, III.) picked up an RBI single in the fourth while Schuster drove in a run in the eighth, collecting his second hit of the ballgame.
