Lipscomb’s six-game winning streak came to a screeching halt on Sunday due to a sub-par pitching performance and the opportunistic hitting of Evansville.
The Aces scored seven runs in the fifth frame to break a 3-3 tie and cruised to a 10-5 victory at Ken Dugan field to avoid being swept by the Bisons.
Junior pitcher Dayton Tripp suffered his first loss of the season on the mound, allowing six runs on 10 hits in four innings of work. Tripp pitched in the fifth inning but did not record an out as Evansville quickly loaded the bases before he was taken out of the game. The Bisons could not seem to get out of the inning as they went through four pitchers (Tripp, Dallas Gibson, Alex Dorso and Adam Stewart) and slowly lost control as Evansville belted the ball all over the field.
“I always tell our team that in a college baseball game someone is always going to crack,” skipper Jeff Forehand said after the game. “After they got runners on base, that’s when you need to put the fire out and only give up 2 or 3 instead of 7. All the momentum and energy was on their side, and that big inning was what killed us.”
The loss brought a six-game win streak to an end and moved the Bisons to 14-9 on the season. After falling behind 1-0, left-fielder Lee Solomon drove in catcher Jeffrey Crisan on a groundout to get the Bisons on the board. First baseman Cade Sorrels then drove in Von Watson with a double down the left-field line to give the Bisons a 2-1 lead.
Evansville quickly regained the lead with two runs in the 4th inning, but Crisan tied the game at three in the bottom of the frame with a double that scored second-baseman Hunter Hanks. Hanks and Crisan were the offensive stars in the contest for the Bisons as both had three hits.
The Bisons scored one run in the sixth inning and one in the eighth but the deficit proved too large to come back from. Lipscomb finished the game with 11 hits but left seven runners on base in the contest.
“We talk all the time about how you have to play nine strong innings in a baseball game, and unfortunately we had one bad inning today,” Forehand said. “Hopefully we can move past this one and learn a few things.”
The Bisons take on Vanderbilt at First Tennessee Park on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. before starting conference play on the road at USC Upstate this weekend.
“There aren’t that many games in a season so we’re always a little down after a loss, but we’ve just got to come back tomorrow and get ready for Vanderbilt and see if we can get another streak started.”
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics