March 16, 2013 - The Concordia Cougars won their first two games of a scheduled four-game weekend trip to Indiana. A 7-6 win over DePauw University and a 7-3 win over Rose-Hulman Institute improved the Cougars to 9-1 on the season.
Timely hitting enabled Concordia to pull out the first game against DePauw and overcome some inconsistent defense which allowed five of the runs against starter
Ryan Thorsen (Lake Villa, IL/Grant Community) and reliever
Kevin Pawell (Kenosha, WI/Bradford) to go as unearned. Two of those runs crossed the plate in the second to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead, but the Cougars evened the score in their half of the second as
Will Randerson (Combined Locks, WI/Kimberly) and
Paul LoDolce (Northlake, IL/Walther Lutheran) drove in runs. The Cougars then took a 3-2 lead in the third as
Thomas Gier (Fox Lake, IL/Grant Community) hit a clutch, two-out run-scoring double.
The Tigers tied the game in the fourth, but the Cougars answered again in their half. Two runs crossed the plate, LoDolce driving home the go-ahead run with a base hit. LoDolce batted in his third run of the game in the fifth with a fielder's choice to put Concordia up 6-3. However, DePauw came back a final time in the sixth as they plated three unearned runs off of Pawell to knot the game at 6-6.
Concordia scored the deciding run in the sixth as
Steve Zubrzycki (McHenry, IL/Marian Central Catholic) led off with a walk.
Robert Weis' (Oak Creek, WI/H.S.) grounder to third moved Zubrzycki into scoring position from where he scored on
Shawn Miller's (Pleasant Prairie, WI/Tremper) single.
Pawell (1-0) shut down the Tigers in the seventh and retired one man in the eighth before giving way to righthander
Steve Cox (Villa Park, IL/Willowbrook). Cox got the final five outs to notch his second save.
In the nightcap against host Rose-Hulman, the Engineers pushed across a first-inning run that held up until the top of the fourth
. Kyle Huber (Chicago, IL/Lane Tech) and
Tony Barreto (Cicero, IL/Nazareth Academy) drove home runs to put the Cougars in the lead for good.
Cougar starter
Dan Kluss (Niles, IL/Niles West) made the 2-1 lead stand up until Concordia's hitters put the game away in the seventh. They loaded the bases with one out, and Weis drew a walk to force home the first run of the inning. Miller was next up, and he was hit by a pitch to force in another run for a 4-1 lead. Gier then delivered a two-run single to score Zubrzycki and Weis, and
Derek Binninger (Pleasant Prairie, WI/Tremper) drove home Miller for the fifth run of the inning and a 7-1 lead.
The Engineers came back with two unearned runs off of Kluss, but it was too little, too late for the home team. Kluss went on to a 119-pitch complete-game victory to improve to 2-1 on the season. Kluss struck out six and walked nobody while allowing eight hits.
Sunday's games at Rose-Hulman's Art Nehf Field were postponed due to inclement weather. The Cougars will open the home schedule with single games against the College of St. Scholastica next Saturday and Sunday.
