CHICAGO, Illinois – The Ripon baseball program dropped a pair of road games on Wednesday afternoon at J. Kyle Anderson Field, falling to Chicago 5-3 to wrap up last Tuesday's suspended game in Ripon before losing a close 1-0 game to the Maroons.
To close the book on the completed game from last Tuesday, Chicago (14-19, 13-5 MWC) scored the runner that was left on second last week to lead 5-3 in the ninth inning. Though the tying run was on base, Ripon (9-20, 6-11 MWC) was unable to bring anyone home in the bottom of the ninth and dropped the opening game on Wednesday.
Kaleb Burns (2-for-4, 2 runs) was the only Red Hawk with multiple hits, while
Nick Tenny (1-for-5),
Alex Pankratz (1-for-2, run),
Jack Anderson (1-for-4, RBI),
Kyler Hickman (1-for-4) and
Remington Cox (1-for-3) also had base knocks.
On the mound,
Rex Bayer got the loss in relief, while
Ian Plaster,
Caleb Mammoser,
Orion Rieden,
Brett Tetzlaff and
Brock Turkington all saw action on the mound as well.
Game two was a defensive battle between Ripon starter
Blaine Wahlen and the five Chicago pitchers as the teams combined for 11 total hits between them. Ripon had a runner in scoring position in the top of the third but couldn't capitalize, and the Maroons scored the only run of the game in the bottom of the third on a one-out RBI single.
The Red Hawks had another runner in scoring position in the sixth but a two-out groundout ended the rally.
Nick Terrell led off the ninth inning with a single, but a pair of strikeouts sandwiched around a foul-out ended the game in favor of Chicago.
Wahlen suffered the loss on the mound, throwing 6.0 innings while giving up just five hits and one earned run. He also punched out six – his sixth consecutive outing with at least six strikeouts. In six innings of work, Wahlen had a trio of three-up, three-down innings.
Mitchell Lukasik pitched a pair of innings in relief, surrendering one hit while striking out three.
Offensively, Pankratz (1-for-4), Terrell (1-for-4), Hickman (1-for-3),
Nick Tenny (1-for-4) and
Zach Albrent (1-for-3) all recorded base hits.
NEXT UP: Ripon travels to Marian for a doubleheader on Sunday (April 28) beginning at noon.
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