University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Falls to Northwestern 4-3
4/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Minnesota (11-15, 3-6) fell to Northwestern (11-21, 4-5) 4-3 in the series finale at Target Field on Sunday, Apr. 17. With the loss, the Gophers ended up dropping two of the three games in the series.
The Gophers were led by redshirt sophomore Troy Larson (Maplewood, Minn.) who went 2-for-4 with a double, one RBI, and one run. Kyle Geason (Eden Prairie, Minn.) added two RBI and was 1-for-4 with a double.
Nick O'Shea also had a double, was walked once, and brought in a run. AJ Pettersen (Minnetonka, Minn.) finished 1-for-5 on the day, and has now collected a hit in 25 of the Gophers' 26 games this year.
Matt Puhl (North St. Paul, Minn.) also reached base twice, and was 1-for-3 with a double. As a team, Minnesota had three errors and left seven runners on base.
Minnesota starter Austin Lubinsky (La Crosse, Wis.) had a no-decision, as he gave up six hits, two earned runs, two walks and struck out four batters in 6.2 innings. The 6.2 innings matched a season-high for him. Tom Windle (Maple Grove, Minn.) was charged with the loss to drop to 2-2. Windle gave up two hits and one run in one third of an inning.
Billy Soule (Hamel, Minn.) pitched two shutout innings, gave up two hits, one walk and struck out four batters. Soule has pitched 10.1 scoreless innings in a row, spanning his last five outings.
Northwestern starter Dan Tyson took a no-decision as he pitched 4.2 innings. gave up five hits, three runs, two earned, and walked one batter. Ethan Bramschreiber took over in the fifth and picked up the win for the Wildcats in relief to move to 1-1 on the season. Bramschreiber gave up three hits, walked a batter and struck out three in four innings of work. Paul Snieder faced the final batter to pick up his fourth save of the season.
The Wildcats came out swinging and notched a run early in the first inning. Trevor Stevens led things off with an infield single and advanced to second on an errant pickoff attempt. Snieder drew a walk to make it first and second with no outs. After Lubinsky got Chris Lashmet to ground into a double play, Jack Havey came up with a two-out RBI single to give Northwestern the early 1-0 lead.
The Gophers got on board in the bottom of the third with one run. Kurt Schlangen (Albany, Minn.) reached on an error by the shortstop to lead off the inning, and moved to third on a single from Pettersen. Larson beat out a double play to get a fielder's choice RBI and plated Schlangen to tie the game at 1-1.
Northwestern answered in the fourth with a single run to go up 2-1. Kyle Ruchim reached on a one-out error and moved to second when Chris Kontos drew a walk to make it first and second. Geoff Rowan plated Ruchim with an RBI single to put the Wildcats back ahead.
The Gophers had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the fourth when Puhl led off with double. However, Tyson struck out the next two batters and got Trip Schultz (Forest Lake, Minn.) to pop out to end the inning unscathed.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Minnesota pushed across two runs to take its first lead of the day at 3-2. With two outs, Larson delivered a double to keep the inning alive. After O'Shea was intentionally walked, Geason delivered a two-run double to right field to put the Gophers ahead by a run.
The game saw another tie when Chris Lashmet tallied an RBI single in the top of the seventh to bring in Nick Linne for a 3-3 score.
After a Minnesota pitching change, Ruchim hit a triple into left center to lead off the inning. Soule managed to strikeout Chris Kontos for the first out. However, Rowan sent a sacrifice fly center field to plate Ruchim to give Northwestern back the lead at 4-3.
O'Shea led off the bottom of the eighth with a double, but was thrown out at third on a fielder's choice ground out by Geason. Matt Puhl (North St. Paul, Minn.) walked to make it first and second, but Bramschreiber got out of the inning with a double play.
Northwestern was led by Rowan who went 1-for-3 with two RBI, while Lashmet finished 2-for-5 with an RBI. Havey was also 1-for-4 with an RBI, while Ruchim was 1-for-5 with two runs. Snieder also reached base four times, and was 2-for-3.
The Golden Gophers will be back in action on Wednesday, Apr. 20 against South Dakota State. The midweek contest will take place at Siebert Field at 3:05 p.m.
