CHIILLICOTHE, OHIO – A day after plating 18 runs in a doubleheader sweep, the Lake Erie College baseball team scored just two Sunday (March 17) resulting in a pair of one-run losses against nonconference rival Notre Dame College at VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe.  Great pitching on both sides resulted in 3-2 and 1-0 scores, with both games going to the Falcons who earned a split in the four-game weekend series.  

Thanks to a first-inning RBI single from senior DH Patrick Kilway (Tallmadge, Ohio/Tallmadge), Lake Erie (3-10) led 1-0 in game one until the Falcons scored three times in the fourth inning.  Hank Beasore had the big hit in the frame, a two-run single up the middle. The score stayed 3-1 until the top of the seventh when the Storm mounted a rally, scoring one run on a pinch-hit RBI single from freshman Rutger Luebke (Medina, Ohio/Medina) and loading the bases with one out. 

The Storm looked like they were going to tie the game on a sacrifice fly to right center by junior Garrett Emling (Tallmadge, Ohio/Tallmadge), but Luebke was thrown out at third trying to tag up on the play before the tying run could score. 

Zach Gresch (2-2) earned the win for Notre Dame (10-14), allowing two runs on seven hits in 6 1/3 innings while Taylor Neville got the final two outs on one play to earn the save.  Senior Adam Beach (Vermillion, Ohio/Vermillion) took the loss for the Storm, allowing three runs in four innings to fall to 0-3. Both starters struck out five hitters.

Sophomore Josh Hudeck (Macedonia, Ohio/Trinity/Ashland) had two hits and scored a run for the Storm while Jared Clovis had three hits to lead the Falcons.

In game two, senior Logan Nordquist (Alliance, Ohio/Alliance) and Tyler DeCrapio engaged in a pitchers' duel.  Nordquist (0-3) pitched his best game of the season, allowing just one run on four hits in tossing a complete game for the Storm.  But that one run, which came on a sacrifice fly by Brennan Singleton in the bottom of the sixth, proved to be the difference.

DeCrapio (1-2) kept the Storm off the scoreboard by stranding eight Storm base runners. He allowed six hits, including a pair of doubles, and worked his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the first. 

The Storm opens Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play Wednesday, March 20, with a doubleheader in Columbus, Ohio against Ohio Dominican University.  First pitch is set for 2 p.m.

-LEC-