TOPEKA, Kan. – The Washburn baseball team started MIAA play with a 12 inning 3-2 victory over Fort Hays State on Saturday afternoon. The Ichabods will play game two of the series on Sunday with first pitch set for 1 p.m. at Falley Field.
The Tigers (1-12, 0-1 MIAA) got on the board in the first inning after a leadoff walk eventually came around to score. With the bases loaded and one out, Washburn starter
Rane Pfeifer mitigated the damage and ended the inning with back-to-back strikeouts.
The Ichabods (9-4, 1-0 MIAA) went down quietly in four of the first five innings before taking the lead in the bottom of the sixth.
Cale Savage led off the frame with an infield single and up next was
Tyler Clark-Chiapparelli, who sent the first pitch he saw over the left field wall for a no-doubter two-run home run.
The score remained at 2-1 until the top of the ninth. The Tigers drew a two-out walk and then two-consecutive singles scored the tying run.
Parker Dunn hit a leadoff double down the left field line to start the home half of the ninth and moved up to third on a sacrifice bunt by
Brett Ingram, but the Ichabods were unable to bring in the winning run and the game was sent into extras.
Neither team got a runner past second base until the bottom of the 12th. With one out,
Otto Jones was walked on four-straight pitches and moved over to second on Watkins' bunt single to the pitcher. Savage was also walked to load up the bases for Clark-Chiapparelli, who brought in the winning run on a sacrifice fly to center field.
Clark-Chiapparelli drove in all three runs for Washburn after his two-run homer and sac fly. In his first game of the season,
Andrew Schmidtlein went 2-3 at the plate.
Cal Watkins also had two hits.
The four Washburn pitchers combined for 18 strikeouts, tying a program single-game record. Pfeifer went 3.2 innings and allowed one run on three hits with four walks and six strikeouts.
Dalton Huggins came on in the top of the fourth and tossed a career-high 5.1 innings and surrendered one run on three hits with one walk to go with a personal-best eight strikeouts.
Joel Casillas and
Zach Philbin teamed up for three scoreless innings and Philbin received the win.
