Baseball drops game to Rockhurst

By Matt Gleaves

April 23, 2010 No Comments

Fundamentals are one of the keys to being successful in baseball and last Wednesday the Griffons struggled with playing fundamentally sound. The Griffons had three errors and only six hits, which led to 8-2 loss to Rockhurst University last Wednesday at Phil Welch Stadium.

The Griffons started the first inning with two of their three errors. Those to errors came back to haunt Western as two runs came in off errors and one long ball hit by Rockhurst second basemen Chad Hatcher scored two more runs. Griffon pitcher Blake Thomas would then get the final out, but the damage had been done. There would be no coming back for Missouri Western.

Western could only answer with a single in the bottom of the first and would only get three hits over the first five innings.

“Kind of all year we’ve had a struggle with our at bats and tonight was really no different,” head coach Buzz Verduzco said.

On the mound Wednesday night was senior Blake Thomas, the veteran pitcher who went six innings and gave up eight runs. That seemed to be the problem for Western, because only three of those runs were earned.

“The errors kind of got us,” Verduzco said. “They kind of deflated us.”

On the hill for Rockhurst was Alex Seier. Seier went seven innings giving up five hits, one earned run and one strikeout. Leading Rockhurst at the plate was first baseman Ryan Porter. Porter went 4-5 from the plate with two big homeruns that really took the wind out of Western’s sails. Porter was the only player from Rockhurst with more than one hit in the game and a lot of that has to due with the way that Thomas pitched. If you take away the errors for Western, then you’re looking at a one run ball game.

Offensively for the Griffons, they struggled mightily at getting the bat on the ball. There was no Griffon with more than one hit and it wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Griffons were able to get a run across the plate.

In the game the Griffons left eight runners on base – when you do that it becomes very hard for a team to win baseball games. Western managed to get one more run in the eighth off a Scott Groner single.

“Hopefully we can take a few days off, regroup and get ready for the conference run,” Verduzco said. “But we don’t know what that’s going to be yet.”

The Griffons will play the University of Nebraska-Omaha in a double header on Wednesday, April 21 and then will have a double header against Pittsburg State on Friday, April 24.