University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Fall to St. Thomas 8-3
4/14/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The Minnesota baseball team (10-13) dropped an 8-3 decision to St. Thomas (9-13) at Siebert Field on Wednesday, Apr. 13.
Minnesota was led by AJ Pettersen (Minnetonka, Minn.) who reached base all five times he came to the plate and went 2-for-2 with a run. Kurt Schlangen (Albany, Minn.) was also 2-for-3 with a double and a run, while Sam Ryan (Oakdale, Minn.) finished 1-for-2 with two RBI. Drew Hanish (McKinney, Tex.) also scored a run and drew two walks on the afternoon.
The Gophers had eight different pitchers take the mound in the game. Freshman DJ Snelten (Ingelside, Ill.) gave up three hits, one run, walked one and struck out three to take the loss to fall to 0-1. Dustin Klabunde (Brownton, Minn.) gave up five hits and four runs in two-thirds of an inning, while Luke Rasmussen (Northfield, Minn.) surrendered three hits and two runs in 1.1 innings.
Scott Fern (Eau Claire, Wis.) pitched one shutout inning in his first outing of the year, and Tim Ryan (Eagan, Minn.), Kyle O'Shea (Blaine, Minn.) and Cullen Sexton (Plover, Wis.) also pitched scoreless innings.
St. Thomas starter Nick Gervais got a no-decision as he gave up four hits, three runs, walked three and struck out one in four innings. Mark Ulrich also pitched one scoreless innings. John Licht came on in the sixth innings, and pitched four shutout innings of relief to pick up the win to move to 2-1.
The Tommies jumped on the board right away with a single run in the top of the first to go up 1-0. Tim Kuzniar drew a one-out walk, and eventually scored on a wild pitch after moving to third on consecutive singles following his at-bat.
St. Thomas pushed four more runs across in the top of the third to take a 5-0 lead. Matt McQuillan led off the inning with a double, moved to third on a ground out and came home on a wild pitch to make it 2-0. John Mean's two-run single made it 4-0 and Tim Kahle's RBI single pushed the Tommies' lead to five runs.
Taylor Rahm and Means each had RBI doubles in the top of the fourth to move St. Thomas out to a 7-0 lead.
Minnesota came back with three runs in the top of the fifth to cut the lead to 7-3. Hanish led off with a walk, and moved to third on a double by Schlangen. Pettersen was then hit by a pitch to load the bases. Hanish came home to score on a wild pitch, and Ryan plated Sclangen and Pettersen with a two-run single to cut the lead to four runs.
With runners on first and third, pinch-hitter Troy Larson (Maplewood, Minn.) hit a fly ball to shallow center field. McQuillan delivered an accurate throw to the plate to get Justin Gominsky (Mahtomedi, Minn.) for the double play to end the inning.
St. Thomas added a single run on a sacrifice fly by Rahm to move it to the final tally of 8-3.
The Tommies were led by Means, who was 2-for-3 with a double and three RBI, while Taylor Rahm was 1-for-2 with a double, two runs and two RBI. Charles Bruchu also went 4-for-5 with two doubles and a run, while JD Dorgan was 3-for-5 with two runs.
Minnesota will be back in action when it plays host to Northwestern in a three-game series at Target Field. The Gophers will face the Wildcats on Friday, Apr. 15 at 3:05 p.m., Saturday, Apr. 16 at 3:05 p.m., and Sunday, Apr. 17 at 1:05 p.m. All three games can be heard live in the Gold Zone.
