Baseball News Releases
Rams swept in three-game series with Wartburg
Coming up - Wednesday, April 15, vs. Coe (DH), Ash Park Field, Mount Vernon, 5 p.m.; Sunday, April 19, at Grinnell (1x9), Grinnell, 1 p.m.; Tuesday, at Central (DH), Pella, 2:30 p.m.
Ram review - Cornell ran into the wrong team at the wrong time during a three-game Iowa Conference series with perennial power Wartburg Friday and Saturday in Mount Vernon.
The 12-time defending IIAC champion Knights extended their winning streak to six games by sweeping Cornell, 16-2 Friday, and 6-0 and 11-1 Saturday at Ash Park Field. Cornell moved to 4-17 overall and 1-9 in league play while the Knights improved to 16-11 and 8-4.
Wartburg outhit the Rams, 43-16, and received three quality performances from its starting pitchers, who combined to log 20 of the staff's 22 innings. Cornell committed 12 errors in the field to the Knights' two.
The Rams were bit by the big inning as Wartburg scored 22 of its 33 runs in four innings over the weekend. The Knights used a seven-run second inning to take an early 10-1 lead in Friday's opener, which ended via the mercy rule when Wartburg tacked on six more runs in the eighth. In Saturday's finale, Wartburg broke open a tight 2-1 contest with a six-run fifth inning.
Junior outfielder David Bartine (Des Moines/Roosevelt) led the Rams with a .500 batting average in the Wartburg series, collecting three hits and scoring a run. He extended his current hitting streak to five games. Caleb Wilson (Benton, Ill./Benton) went 2-for-5 and Michael Tierney (Cedar Rapids/Jefferson) had three hits in nine at-bats.
Bartine accounted for two of Cornell's seven hits in Friday's scheduled nine-inning game. Cornell's pitching staff was roughed up for 17 hits and the Rams struggled defensively with six errors.
In Saturday's opening game, Cornell was held to three hits and failed to score a run for only the second time this season. Starting pitcher Casey Korn (High Ridge, Mo./Northwest) kept the Rams close for most of the game, trailing 4-0 entering the sixth. He surrendered five earned runs in 6 2/3 innings with three strikeouts.
Cornell stuck with the Knights for four innings in Saturday's finale. Sophomores Ryan Clausen (Clinton/Clinton) and Matt Pfister (Northfield, Ill./New Trier) belted back-to-back doubles in the bottom of the fourth that pulled the Rams to within 2-1. Cornell starting pitcher Adam Butler (Lincolnwood, Ill./Niles West) allowed only two hits through the first four innings, but was charged with five hits in Wartburg's game-shifting six-run fifth. Tierney had two of the Rams' six hits.
