April 16, 2008

Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Bulldog baseball team traveled to Grand Rapids on Wednesday afternoon and will enjoy the bus ride home having taken over first place in the MIAA standings with a pair of 5-2 wins at Calvin College. Calvin entered the day at 10-1 while Adrian was 10-2. The Bulldogs have now won nine in a row and once again the pitching staff did a great job allowing three earned runs and four total runs in 14 innings of work.

Nick Sarkissian picked a complete-game victory in game one improving to 4-1 on the mound. He allowed six hits and two earned runs while walking and striking out two. AC's defense behind him committed no errors while Calvin's pitchers had to see five errors by the Knights.

Calvin led 2-0 with a two-spot in the second but Adrian tied the game with two runs of their own in the third. The Bulldogs had four hits in the inning as Kris Powell had an RBI single and Bobby Rickstad an RBI double with two outs. Adrian went ahead 4-2 with two more runs in the fourth. Steve Vanderheyden continues to display underrated power as he led off the inning with a homer to left. Vanderheyden now leads the team with three long-balls. Calvin made two costly errors to keep the inning alive and Todd Meyers made them pay with an RBI single to right center scoring Alexander Younce who reached on an error by shortstop Matt Schepel. Adrian executed a double steal in the seventh for their final run. Alex Cowart came home with the fifth run as Rickstad stole second with two outs.

Josh Lancaster, Tim Parent and Nick Vandike had the job of bringing home a sweep and they did just that allowing a combined six hits with three strikeouts in seven innings. Lancaster (2-1) went the first five for the win and Vandike picked up his third save allowing just one base runner in the seventh. Kyle Cousins picked up his first loss going 6.1 innings and allowing five earned runs and 10 hits.

The Bulldogs used a three-run fourth to seize game two. The first four men reached base in the inning as Nick Sarkissian broke out of a hitting slump with an RBI single to tie the game at 2-2. Younce hit the game-winning single down the right field line scoring Vanderheyden to give AC a 3-2 lead. Meyers later hit a sacrifice fly to center scoring Sarkissian. Jake Cappelletty had an RBI single in the seventh to pad the lead to 5-2.

Rickstad went 4-for-7 in the twinbill with two RBI. Sarkissian and Younce each went 2-for-3 in the seventh and eighth spots in the order. Adrian is now 20-5 overall and entertains Calvin for two more games on Saturday at Nicolay Field beginning at 1:00 p.m.