[Championship Page]

[Game 4 – Knox 12, Grinnell 7]

RIPON, Wis. – In a wild back and forth game that featured 19 runs, 23 hits, and eight errors Knox was able to come through with a 12-7 win over Grinnell and send the Pioneers packing as the first team to be eliminated from the 2013 Midwest Conference Baseball Championship.

Knox raced out to a 6-1 lead after four innings of play and never looked back as they scored at least one run in six of the nine innings they had at bats in. The big early hit for the Prairie Fire came in a three run second inning when Caleb Weaver homered with two outs in the second inning to give Knox a 4-0 lead after two innings of play.

Grinnell battled back to cut the lead to 7-3 in the sixth inning with a pair of runs thanks to a RBI groundout from Ryan Penaflor and a groundball from Matt Blumenreich that was played into a run scoring error.

With the game still much in doubt Knox came to bat the next half inning and put four more runs on the board thanks in part to a couple of Grinnell errors and two hits. Erik Smoy’s two out double plated the final run of the inning to make the score 11-4.

Down 12-4 the Pioneers made one last ditch effort at a comeback but fell short scoring only three runs in the bottom half of the ninth inning that came result of a Walker Bell single (two RBI) and another run from a Knox error.

Knox finished the game with 12 hits and its number one through four hitters went a combined 11-for-23 with nine runs scored and ten RBI. Weaver was a big part of the offensive production with four hits and four runs batted in while Tallman had three hits, three runs batted in, and three runs scored. Paul Mills earned the win going 8.1 innings, scattering eight hits and striking out five.

Yuki Kawahara led the way for Grinnell with a 3-for-5 day while Bell had two hits in his five at bats with a pair of runs batted in. Jason Ormond took the loss throwing only 3.2 innings as he gave up seven hits, six runs and struck out one.

Knox moves on to play St. Norbert tomorrow at 10 a.m. in an elimination game. The winner of that game will face Ripon at 1 p.m. in the first championship game.