[Championship Page]

[Game 3 – Ripon 8, St. Norbert 7]

RIPON, Wis. – Ripon battled back with a five run eighth inning to erase a two run deficit and propel them into the championship game of the 2013 MWC Baseball Championship Tournament.

St. Norbert raced out of the gates after an Adam Grambow fielder’s choice at bat resulted in a run in the top half of the first inning. The Green Knights posted four runs in the bottom half of the inning that was highlighted by a two RBI hit from Travis Mason and a Nick Pierre fly out that resulted in a Ripon error that platted two more runs.

Ripon chipped into the lead in the fourth inning with a Nate Siudak RBI single and a Nick Hughes sacrifice fly. The Green Knights got one of those runs back the next half inning with a Jose Godinez two out RBI double to set the score at 5-3 in favor of St. Norbert.

Ripon exploded for five runs in the top of the eighth inning in what turned out to be just enough for victory. The Red Hawks used five hits and to drive in the five runs with run producing at bats by Grambow (single, RBI), Tom Sawyer (single, RBI), Nick Schmidt (triple, two RBI), and Siudak (sacrifice fly, RBI).

Down, but not out, the Green Knights had a last gasp effort to steal a win away. With one out they collected a walk and two singles to load the bases. Alex Larson was walked to score a run before St. Norbert got a RBI groundout from Cameron Jerinarf to pull the game within one. After a pinch hit walk from Carlos Rodriguez Red Hawks reliever Steven Blader got Brandon Kozinski to fly out and leave the bases loaded and keep Ripon undefeated in the postseason.

Kyle Bosquez and Sawyer each had a pair of hits as eight starters recorded at least one hit for Ripon. Tom Fish earned the win going seven innings despite giving up 12 hits while Blader came on to earn the save after recording the final two outs of the game.

St. Norbert collected 14 hits and four players finished the contest with more than one hit. Mason led the team with three hits while Chad Ljunggren, Godinez, and Pierre each had a pair of hits. Kevin Nutley was tagged with the loss after 7.1 innings where he gave up seven hits and seven runs.

With the loss St. Norbert will face the winner of the Knox/Grinnell game at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning with the loser being eliminated from the championship. The winner of that game will face Ripon at 1 p.m. in the first championship game. If Ripon wins the 1 p.m. game they will be the MWC Champion but if Ripon drops the 1 p.m. game there will a second championship game to determine the MWC Champion.