Swedes take pair from Coyotes
By: David Toelle and Andy Brockman, KWU Sports Information

The regular offensive explosion the Kansas Wesleyan Coyotes had been seeing in recent games just did not materialize on Saturday afternoon against the Bethany College Swedes at Dean Evans Stadium. The Coyotes were held to just six total runs as Bethany swept Wesleyan 9-2 and 9-4.

GAME 1: Bethany 9, KWU 2 – Bethany jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the top of the fourth, but Wesleyan tied things up in the bottom half before a seven run fifth from the Swedes would blow the game open and send them to the win.

Harold Holbert led off the game with a double down the left field line, and was moved to third by a sac bunt from Hop Sullivan. A Danny Fernandez single scored Holbert to give Bethany the 1-0 lead.

Brandon Mathes grounded into a double play to negate Darell Grames lead off single in the bottom of the first.

After the first Wesleyan starter Casey Barnes sailed through the next three innings, holding Bethany to two hits and just one run until things unraveled in the fifth.

The Coyotes rallied to tie things up at 2-all in the bottom of the fourth. Grames led off the frame with a single and later scored on a double by Brock Pettyjohn. Ronny Romo plated the second run when he recorded the RBI with a ground out.

Bethany blew the game open in the fifth with seven runs, four of which coming on a grand slam by Joel Sundquist off Wesleyan reliever Jeremy New.

The Coyotes were unable to recover and left two runners in each of the last three innings.

Grames had two of Wesleyan’s nine hits, while seven other players each had one. Barnes pitched four and a third innings in the start, taking his first loss of the season, giving up eight runs on nine hits, while striking out six and walking one. New pitched two and two thirds, giving up one run on two hits while striking out two.

Holbert, Justin Long and Sundquist all had two hits for Bethany, while Sundquist had four RBIs, all on his grand slam to lead the Swedes. Long pitched a complete game, needing only 89 pitches along the way. He gave up two runs on nine hits, while striking out four and walking one.

Game 2: Bethany 9, KWU 4 -- KWU scored four runs on nine hits but it wasn’t enough because Bethany had another good hitting game and scored nine runs.

Bethany got hot fast as they scored three runs in the top of the first, then came right back in the second inning for three more to go up, 6-0.

The Coyotes would answer with one run in both the second and the third inning to cut the Swede lead to 6-2.  Darell Grames hit a sacrifice fly to score Dusty Romero in the second then Romero hit a sac fly scoring Mike Pettibone in the third.

After a few scoreless innings, Bethany struck again with a run in the top of the sixth then two more in the seventh to extend their lead to 9-2.

Wesleyan would attempt to rally in the seventh inning but they fell short.  Grames and Brandon Mathes hit back-to-back singles and they both scored on a hard hit double by Davit Lovett to make the game 9-4 but it would end there.

Nick Allaire started the game for KWU and pitched two innings giving up six runs on six hits while striking out three and walking two.  Brian Dobyns came in and finished the game, pitching five innings allowing three runs on seven hits.  He struck out five Swedes and did not walk any.

Brandon Mathes led the way with two hits and seven other Kansas Wesleyan batters had one hit to round out the nine hit total.

Chris Atkins started the game and pitched 2.1 innings and allowed two runs on five hits while striking out one and walking one.  Alex Molander came in and pitched 3.2 innings in relief and gave up two more runs on three hits while striking out three KWU batters.  Cameron Rittinger finished the game by pitching the last inning and struck out two.

Wesleyan is back in action on Monday when the Coyotes host Ottawa at 2 p.m., at Dean Evans Stadium.

-- KWU SI --