Arden Hills, Minn. - The Bethel University baseball team completed a dramatic comeback victory and blowout victory over St. Olaf (6-5, 16-5) on Tuesday afternoon. The wins move the Royals to 16-4 (8-0) on the season.
Both starting Bethel pitchers picked up wins on the day, with
Aidan Nelson pitching the first game, going three innings with one earned run, and
Max Sutter picking up his fourth win of the season in the second game, throwing a complete game seven innings with five earned runs and seven strikeouts.
Keenan Hodgkin had himself an impressive day at the plate, with five hits and 4 RBI's highlighted by his walk-off homerun in game one of the day.
Game 1 | Bethel 6, St. Olaf 5
Jordan Krupke got the Royals on the board first in this game with a solid RBI single to center to put the Royals up 1-0.
St. Olaf answered back in the top of the fourth inning, scoring a run to tie the game at 1-1. But the tie didn't last long as the Royals scored in the bottom half of the fourth after
Noah Wenberg grounded into a double play but scored
Keenan Hodgkin on the play to put the Royals up 2-1.
Adversity struck the Royals in the top of the fifth inning when the Oles scored four runs, highlighted by a Joey Glampe three-run bomb to left field to put the Oles up 5-2 on the Royals.
The comeback was on for the Royals as they scored twice in the bottom of the sixth when
Matthew Carlsen hit a 2-RBI double to left-center to cut the margin to 5-4.
The bottom of the seventh came with the Royals down by one run and
Justin Winterfeldt homered to right-center to tie the game before
Keenan Hodgkin homered to the same spot to complete the comeback and storybook walk-off win for the Royals at 6-5.
Game 2 | Bethel 16, St. Olaf 5
The second game of the day became a complete blowout early, with the Royals scoring 13 runs in the bottom of the first inning with Keenan Hodgkin, Nick Kulseth, Nolan Jurgenson, Matthew Carlsen, Tommy Friesen, and Noah Wenberg all picking up hits in the inning.
St. Olaf would score one run in the top of the third, three runs in the top of the fourth, and one more in the top of the sixth, but it was much too little too late as the Royals added to their thirteen-run total in the bottom of the third and bottom of the fourth, with Matt Friesen hitting a two-RBI double and Ty Koehn picking up an RBI single.
Up Next:
The Royals stay home and are back in action tomorrow, April 19th as they have another doubleheader matchup, this time against Macalester College with game times set for 2:30 and 5:00 pm at Hargis Park.
