Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 by John Leerar
The Calvin Knights baseball team returned from a spring break trip to Florida to open up conference play. Their opponent was the Hornets of Kalamazoo College. Not only were the Knights looking for their first conference win of the season, they were looking for the first conference win of head coach
John Rypel's Calvin coaching career.
The first win would have to wait, however, as Calvin dropped both ends of the twinbill, 13-10 and 7-6.
In the opener, the Knights got off to a poor start. By the middle of the fifth inning, Calvin was already down 8-0, with only a single from sophomore Colt Wolfe (Eaton Rapids/Eaton Rapids HS) for offense.
In the bottom of the fifth the Calvin's offense got going. They scored two runs in the inning, being led by an RBI Single by senior Ben Wohl (Canton/Plymouth HS).
The Hornets came back with two runs in the top of the sixth before the Knights thundered back with three in the bottom of the inning. Senior Peter Cupery (Holland/Holland Christian HS) came up big for the Knights, knocking in two with a double to the right-center gap.
Kalamazoo scored three more in the top of the seventh, bringing their lead to 13-5 going into the bottom of the inning.
The Knights were not done yet though. Showing tremendous tenacity, they scored five runs on five singles and a walk, and had the winning run up at the plate with the bases loaded before a flyout to center ended game one.
Senior Austin Juza (St. Joseph/Lake Michigan Catholic HS) took the loss for the Knights, giving up 6 earned runs in 3 ⅓ innings while striking out six.
First-year coach John Rypel was happy with his team's resilience. "The hitters really did a good job of not giving up. As a team, we did a good job as well of staying in the game. We're never out of a ballgame with the way we can swing it."
The second game started off well for Calvin. In the bottom of the second, junior Jordan VanderWall (Wyoming/South Christian HS) scored Wohl on an RBI groundout. And in the third, the Knights added three more runs with RBI doubles by Wolfe and sophomore Matt Kotva (Elkhart, IN/Concord).
After two Kalamazoo runs in the fourth and one in the fifth, Wolfe hit a monster 400-foot solo home run to center, bringing Calvin's lead to 5-3.
In the top of the sixth, however, the Hornets scored four runs on a home run and four walks to take the lead going into the bottom of the sixth.
The Knights did not score in the sixth but again threatened Kalamazoo's lead in the seventh. Calvin plated one and brought the tying run to third and the winning run to first before a lineout by VanderWall ended the rally for the Knights.
With the losses, Calvin drops to 3-7 on the year and 0-2 in the MIAA.
The Knights travel to Kalamazoo on Saturday to take on the Hornets in a doubleheader starting at 11:00 a.m.
