ARDEN HILLS, Minn.—Bethel University's baseball team finished a trio of games in less than 24 hours at the University of Northwestern's Reynolds Field Thursday afternoon.

The Royals (13-3), who suffered a 15-inning 3-2 heartbreaker that ended a program-record 12-game win streak against St. Scholastica at UNW Wednesday night, endured another devastating blow in game one of Thursday's opener against the Eagles (5-12) before closing the day with an 8-3 victory.

BU trailed Northwestern 1-0 in game one until the top of the sixth when the Royals scored an unearned run that evened the game at one. But even though the box score gave Bethel a 9-4 advantage in hits after 5.5 innings played, UNW responded with a four-run sixth and held on to defeat the nationally-ranked Royals in game one 5-1.

Peyton Gallagher earned his first career start, allowing one run on three hits, one walk, and two hit-by-pitches, while striking out one in 3.1 innings pitched. John Horner led BU at the plate as he was the only Royal with multiple hits. Joey Fredrickson finished 1-for-2 with one HBP and one run scored.

Game two was vastly different from the get-go. Bethel began the second seven-inning affair with two runs in the opening frame, one in the third, two in the fifth, and two in the sixth before Northwestern plated their first run.

Austin Ledin was red hot as the senior collected three hits, including one double and one triple, two runs, and four RBI. Sam Horner finished 2-for-4 with two doubles, two runs, and one RBI and Joey Fredrickson collected two hits, including one double, and one RBI.

Sam Riola took the bump in game two and threw a complete-game quality start in his first career outing. Riola allowed six hits in seven frames (three in the seventh), but struck out four and allowed zero free bases.