The St. Thomas baseball team mercy-ruled Western Illinois 12-2 in seven innings Sunday at Koch Diamond. The victory marked the Tommies’ third consecutive series win after defeating Tarleton State and Northern Colorado prior.
The Tommies’ (12-24, 6-9 Summit League) bats blistered the ball, warming up the crowd on a frigid afternoon and loudly responding after losing via mercy rule to the Leathernecks (5-35, 3-15) in the second game of Friday’s doubleheader. In Sunday’s game, the Tommies put up thirteen hits, nearly doubling the total from Friday’s loss.
“I think it shows our resiliency,” senior third baseman Kyle Halverson said. “To be able to give them a taste of their own medicine and ten-run them back is good.”
St. Thomas opened the scoring in the second inning, starting with four straight hits.
First-year left fielder Brigs Richartz tallied the first run with a double that scored sophomore catcher Max Moris from second base.
First-year designated hitter Jonah Hoeg followed Richartz with an RBI single that scored junior first-baseman Charlie Bartholomew. Two batters later, sophomore second baseman Sam Kulesa topped the inning off with a two-run double that scored Hoeg and Richartz, putting the Tommies up 4-0.
“Adversity and response, adversity and response, it’s been the story of the year,” coach Chris Olean said.
Despite the cold weather, first-year pitcher Evan Esch kept the Leathernecks in check, throwing four shutout innings and striking out four while only allowing two hits.
Esch was relieved in the top of the fifth by sophomore Duke Coborn, who pitched a scoreless frame. The Tommies’ offense put up another four runs in the bottom half.
“You see the difference starting pitching can make,” Olean said. “Evan kept us in it while we found our legs hitting.”
Back-to-back RBI singles from Halverson and Moris scored the first two runs. Then, after a pitching change and a hit-by-pitch, Richartz put the Tommies up by eight with a bases-clearing double that scored Moris and Bartholomew.
“Especially with the weather like this; it’s tough to get the bats going,” Halverson said.
After a one-two-three inning from Coborn, the Tommies added to their lead with an RBI single from Halverson that scored first-year right fielder Ben Vujovich and gave the Tommies a 9-0 lead.
“I think the day off gave us a chance to refocus,” Olean said. “We had a long conversation.”
Coborn ran into trouble in the seventh, walking two batters before giving up a one-run single. The Leathernecks got another run off a throwing error by Moris, bringing the score to 9-2.
After a groundout in the bottom half of the seventh, the Tommies took three consecutive walks to load the bases. First-year pinch hitter Tommy Golbrandson drove in Richartz with a sacrifice fly to right field. Finally, with runners on second and third, Kulesa beat out an infield single that scored two after an aggressive send by third base coach Tanner Vavra.
“Probably the ugliest walk-off of all time,” Kulesa said. “It’s a big confidence boost.”
The Tommies will play in Milwaukee against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, May 4. After Milwaukee, the Tommies face conference powerhouse Oral Roberts in a weekend series starting Friday.
“We have arguably the best team in the conference, Oral Roberts, this weekend,” Olean said. “Just again, (I’m) real pleased with the response and hopefully we continue to build on it and not have too many more setbacks.”
Sam Larson can be reached at lars4378@stthomas.edu.