St. Thomas baseball split its doubleheader against Northern Colorado with a 5-4 win and 7-4 loss Saturday at Koch Diamond.
The Tommies’ (9-22 overall, 3-8 Summit League) kept both games competitive, amassing 19 hits to the Bear’s (10-27, 6-8) 20 while playing solid defense. First-year players Ben Vojuvich, Brigs Richartz and sophomore catcher Max Moris each hit home runs over the games.
“It takes the pressure off,” coach Chris Olean said. “They are getting more comfortable in the box and trust in themselves.”
Game one
The Bears took the lead early in the first inning off a single and a fielding error, quickly going up 1-0.
The Tommies didn’t respond until the third inning when Richartz blasted an opposite-field two-run home run that put the Tommies ahead 2-1.
Ritchartz added to the Tommies’ total in the fifth, doubling and driving in two more runs to extend the lead to 4-1.
“The offense is huge,” Olean said. “At-bats overall were pretty good.”
Senior starter Graham Laubscher took advantage of the lead, pitching five shutout innings after the first inning. Laubscher also became the first Tommie pitcher to reach 300 career strikeouts.
The Tommies’ bullpen took over in the seventh, with sophomore Jeremy Klick pitching a scoreless frame.
Northern Colorado tied the game 4-4 in the eighth, scoring three runs off first-year pitcher Carl Cano. St. Thomas quickly responded when Moris hit a go-ahead solo home run in the bottom of the eighth.
“We were able to come back and put together some at-bats,” Moris said. “I was able to find a barrel and hit it out.”
Junior pitcher T.J. Constertina pitched a clean ninth inning to seal the 5-4 victory.
Game two
Both teams could not score in the first two innings, but the Tommies finally broke through for three runs in the third inning. Moris hit a triple that scored two runs and scored another off a throwing error.
The Bears responded in the top of the fourth with a two-run home run off sophomore pitcher Duke Coborn putting the score at 3-2. Tommie left fielder Ben Vujovich hit a solo home run in the bottom of the inning to put the Tommies ahead 4-2.
Coborn was solid through five innings but only got one out in the sixth before giving up a grand slam to senior left fielder Lincoln Turner. Coborn was pulled for Tucker Huhn with the score 7-4 Bears.
“(Coborn) got a bad line score but he didn’t pitch as bad as it looks,” Olean said.
Neither team scored again despite the Tommies loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth. The final score remained 7-4.
“We’re coming along,” Olean said. “This is a team that we should compete with and it wasn’t a good loss in the second one, but we’re close.”
The Tommies play next on Sunday for the rubber match of the series against Northern Colorado at 1 p.m. at Koch Diamond.
Sam Larson can be reached at lars4378@stthomas.edu.