MINNETONKA, Minn. – Second baseman Cory Quinlan hit a grand slam in the bottom of the fifth inning to lead the No. 1-seeded St. Thomas baseball team to a 7-3 victory over No. 4-seeded St. John’s University in the opening round of the MIAC playoffs.

The Tommies (31-7, 18-2), got off to a shaky start, allowing the Johnnies (21-9, 13-7) to get on the scoreboard first. St. Thomas answered with a run in the bottom of the first, and the 1-1 tie lasted until the fifth inning, when the Tommies exploded for five runs in the inning.

Third baseman Jack Hogan had the first RBI of the game for the Tommies with a single to right field that scored right fielder Kelvin Stroik. Collin Felhaber was the starting pitcher for St. John’s and went five innings for the Johnnies, giving up nine hits and five earned runs.

“Their pitcher was doing a nice job keeping us off balance, and the second, third time through, our guys worked counts and saw some pitches they could hit,” coach Chris Olean said. “I think overall we still could’ve done more. I mean, we left 14 guys on base. You would like to score a few of those guys if you can. Luckily it didn’t bite us.”

Leaving runners on base was the story of the afternoon for the Tommies as they struggled to convert with runners in scoring position early in the game. However, first baseman Tyler Peterson finally broke through in the bottom of the fifth with a solo home run to give the Tommies their first lead of the game.

“Tyler’s been there all year. He’s a guy who will come up with big hits. He puts a lot of that on himself to do that,” Olean said.

After a single by Hogan and two walks, Quinlan came to the plate with the bases loaded and a 2-1 lead.

“(Felhaber) threw me a fastball and left it up a little bit. With two strikes I was just looking for something to get in the outfield and put a good swing on it.”

Quinlan was 2-for-5 on the game with four RBIs. Power is something that is not usually in Quinlan’s repertoire, Olean said.

“Cory’s had some good at-bats, but we haven’t seen that charge in a while so that was pretty good,” Olean said. “I think that’s what postseason baseball is about. You find unexpected guys to step up.”

St. Thomas’ starting pitcher Colin Wendinger pitched all nine innings, giving up only three earned runs on five hits. Though Wendinger struggled to control pitches early in the game, he worked through it to have an effective outing.

“Through the first four or five innings,” he said. “I wasn’t really locating that well, but the seventh and eighth innings I started locating my curveball a little more, just got the ground balls I needed.”

Wendinger is not known for going the distance, only having one complete game coming into today’s contest. Wendinger led the MIAC with seven wins and also had an ERA of 2.82.

“Part of it is he hit some guys, walked some guys … but really he has a lot of movement on his fastball, he’s hard to square up,” Olean said about Wendinger’s performance. “That’s why you see a lot of first pitch outs where they just can’t quite get square and roll a ground ball somewhere, and on this surface we’ll take ground balls all day.”

The Tommies resume MIAC tournament play at 2 p.m. Saturday at Veterans Park. The Tommies will square off against the winner of Bethel and St. Mary’s.

“To me it’s just kind of another game, we just wanted to come out and continue to play well. That’s really our goal, to play well,” Olean said. “The wins and losses sort of tend to take care of themselves. If you’re playing like crap, you’re probably not going to win … we’re just trying to get on a little bit of a roll.”

Jordan Kruger can be reached at krug6172@stthomas.edu.