BASEBALL

The #4 Wildcats of Indiana Wesleyan toppled the top-seeded Huntington baseball team, 10-1, under the lights Saturday at Taylor’s Winterholter Field in an elimination game of the Crossroads League tournament. The loss brings HU’s record to 26-14 on the year while IWU (22-29) continues its climb out of the consolation bracket.

Wesleyan will look to avenge their opening game loss to 5th-seeded Taylor on Monday in an elimination game while No. 3 Marian and No. 8 Grace remain undefeated in tourney play. It’s been a rough go of it for the higher seeds as 2nd-seeded Mount Vernon was knocked out of the tourney by 6th-seeded Spring Arbor earlier today.

The Foresters got behind the eight ball right away against IWU – staring at a 3-0 deficit after two innings of play. Frame’s crew got one back in the bottom of the fourth when Ian McCutcheon singled in Andrew Natividad who had opened up HU’s half of the frame with a double to left.

The HU constituency was banking on the run jumpstarting their team’s offense but unfortunately that just wasn’t the case on this given night. Instead, the Foresters mustered just one more hit the rest of the way. They finished with five hits in the contest.

The Wildcats, on the other hand, were just getting warmed up as they put up at least one run in four of the final five innings on the way to scoring seven more runs to make for the 10-1 final. It proved the Foresters’ second worse loss of the season.

Alex McCutcheon took the loss on the bump by giving up six hits, five runs, three of which were earned, and three walks while striking out ten in six innings of work. The loss is McCutcheon’s second of the season. The junior ace has given up just 17 earned runs in his 94 innings on the mound this year.

While their premature exit from the CL tournament wasn’t how they would have prescribed it, the Foresters now sit tight to see where they will head for the 2019 NAIA National Championship Opening Round. HU received the league’s first automatic bid to nationals as the Crossroads League regular season champs.

Opening Round qualifiers and brackets will be announced Thursday, May 9 at 4:00 p.m. CDT on the NAIA Facebook page.