COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – The fourth-seeded Bethel University baseball team beat third-seeded Concordia College 3-0 Friday afternoon in the MIAC semifinals to secure a spot in Saturday's MIAC Championship.
The Royals will have a rematch with top-seeded Gustavus Adolphus and only need to win once to claim back-to-back playoff titles. Game two, if the Royals are defeated in game one, will take place 30 minutes after in a winner-take-all.
On the bump for the Royals,
Ty Koehn got the start and threw an impressive seven shut-out innings with one walk and three strikeouts, earning his fourth win of the season.
Blake Williams earned his fifth save of the year, finishing off the last two innings for the Royals with no walks and one strikeout.
At the plate for Bethel,
Keenan Hodgkin hit two cold-blooded RBI singles while
Noah Wenberg added an insurance run in the eighth with an RBI single to left to back up the shutdown Royal pitching on the day.
Bethel got on the board first in this game when Hodgkin hit an RBI single up the middle in the top of the first inning putting the Royals up 1-0 early.
He struck again for Bethel in the top of the fifth, smacking another RBI single up the middle to put the Royals up 2-0.
Wenberg added insurance to Bethel's lead in the eighth with an RBI single to left to put the Royals up 3-0 and the Cobbers would go down without a fight.
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