St. Thomas baseball dropped its home opener 5-3 to South Dakota State University Saturday at Koch Diamond. Despite the loss, senior pitcher Graham Laubscher broke the St. Thomas record for career strikeouts.
Laubscher struck out his first batter of the afternoon for his 270th career strikeout, breaking the 56-year-old record and passing Dick Washburn on the St. Thomas all-time list. After Saturday’s game, Laubscher’s career strikeout total sits at 275.
“It’s been fun, I’ve had a lot of help along the way,” Laubscher said. “I can really thank the St. Thomas program for everything.”
After Laubscher started and gave up five runs over six innings, including a two-run home run in the first inning, sophomore pitcher Kolby Gardner pitched three scoreless innings for the Tommies to finish the game.
The Tommies (4-15 overall, 1-3 Summit) will meet the Jackrabbits (7-15, 1-3) again at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at Koch Diamond.
“Tomorrow’s going to be a long day,” coach Chris Olean said. “So to get through today just using two arms is a pretty big thing for us.”
The Tommies struggled with discipline at the plate, striking out 12 times and walking once.
“I thought we could do more off of that starter,” Olean said. “He was good but not as good as we made him look at times, too many strikeouts.”
Jackrabbits sophomore starter Nic McCay held the Tommies to five hits and three unearned runs over six and one-third innings.
“We have to do a better job of prolonging the at-bat, spoil some good pitches,” Olean said. “Ultimately we were in that game.”
All three St. Thomas runs came in the third inning off errors. Senior catcher Charlie Bartholomew, sophomore second baseman Sam Kulesa and first-year right fielder Joe Vos each drove in a run.
The Tommies will play a doubleheader against SDSU Sunday at home. Game two will start at 2:45 p.m.
Sam Larson can be reached at lars4378@stthomas.edu.