[Baseball Championship Page]

[Game 1 – Ripon 9, Grinnell 3]

RIPON, Wis. – Ripon opened up the first day of play at the 2013 MWC Baseball Championship with a win over South Division foe Grinnell 9-3. The Red Hawks jumped out to a 5-0 lead and never trailed after taking the lead in the bottom of the second inning.

Ripon opened up the scoring in the second inning with a run on three hits as on a Mitchell Busch single up the middle that scored Tom Sawyer. After shutting down Grinnell in the top of the third inning Ripon added three more runs to its lead on four more hits in the bottom half of the inning. Nick Schmitt singled to left field to plate a pair of runs before of Nate Siudak drove home another run the very next batter.

Taylor Koth scored the lone Red Hawks run in the fifth inning as he led off with a single, stole second and then scored on a fielder’s choice two batters later.

Grinnell finally cracked the scoreboard in the top half of the sixth inning thanks to a run scoring single by Walker Bell that scored both Will Mack and Drew Davis who each reached to lead off the inning.

Ripon added another run in the bottom of the six inning thanks to a Kyle Bosquez run scoring single. Grinnell cut the lead to only three in the eighth inning when a Ripon fielding error allowed Yuki Kawahara to score. Grinnell continued to threaten in the eighth inning as they had the bases loaded and two outs but Ripon called on Marshall Zahn who got a strikeout to limit the damage and preserve the lead.

The Red Hawks rounded out the scoring with three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning on run scoring hits from both Zach Bayreuther and Koth.

Ripon finished the game with 15 hits and had five players record multiple hits. Bosquez and Koth each had three hits on the day in five at bats while Adam Grambow, Schmitt and Busch all had a pair of hits. Patrick Van Daalwyk earned his fourth victory of the season tossing 7.2 innings and striking out eight.

For Grinnell Matt Blumenreich had two hits while Bell drove in two of the Pioneers three runs. Will Pahos took the loss as he threw four innings, giving up nine hits, and five runs.

Ripon earns a trip to the winners bracket where they will play the winner of St. Norbert and Knox which is to follow. Grinnell will play the loser of that game in the first elimination game later today.