MINNETONKA, Minn. – Even Behn belted a two-run home run to snap a scoreless game in the top of the 10
th inning to lift Southwest Minnesota State to a 2-0 victory over Concordia-St. Paul in game one of a doubleheader and help the Mustangs earn a split on Saturday at Veterans Field in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference baseball.
CSP took advantage of 12 walks and one hit batter, while limiting SMSU to a pair of hits in game two to earn an 8-2 victory and salvage a split. The teams will play tomorrow with another doubleheader starting at 12 p.m.
The loss snapped SMSU's nine-game conference streak and drops SMSU to 17-8 overall, 12-6 NSIC. CSP is now 13-15 overall, 9-9 NSIC.
The opener featured a pitcher's duel between SMSU's Ryan Chmieleweski and CSP's Korey Dahlberg. Chmielewski was outstanding tossing eight shutout innings with seven strikeouts, while allowing one walk and five hits. Following his second strikeouts in the first inning, Chmielewski reached 200 career strikeouts becoming just the fifth Mustang in program history to reach the 200 mark.
SMSU had several chances to score the game's first run but stranded 10 men on base through nine innings. The Mustangs finally broke through in the 10
th with
Cory Bantam smacking a one-out single before Behn drilled a two-run home run off CSP relief pitcher Jack Greenlun. It was Behn's fourth home run of the season.
Cameron Jensen (1-0) fired two shutout innings with two strikeouts to earn the victory.
SMSU closed game one with seven hits with
Jared Cortez and Behn each finishing with two hits, while Bantam,
Carter Lang and
Brock Woitalla each had one hit.
In game two, SMSU snapped a scoreless game with a two-run top of the third inning to build an early lead. Woitalla opened the inning with a walk, moved to second on a passed ball and advanced to third on a sac bunt by
Henry Hammrich.
Caleb Gardow pushed across the first run on a sac fly, while SMSU's second run scored as
Levi Lampert sprinted across the plate before Cortez was tagged in a run-down between first and second base.
Down 2-0 in the third, CSP rallied with a three-run inning collecting four hits and one walk off SMSU starting pitcher
Jameson Quinn and reliever
Bennett Knapper.
CSP maintained the 3-2 lead into the fifth before putting the game away with a five-run frame collecting just one hit, but taking advantage of five walks and two SMSU errors.
The Mustangs were limited to a season-low two hits with Bantam and Lampert finishing with one each.
Quinn walked four and allowed two runs on one hit in 2 1/3 innings. Knapper (1-1), the first of seven Mustang relief pitchers, suffered the loss allowing three runs (one earned) in two innings with two strikeouts.