After picking up a 17-2 victory on the road against Southeast Missouri State University on March 12, the Jays opened up their home schedule this past weekend, winning three of four against the University of North Dakota and Pacific University.
The three wins pushed the Jays to a 10-4 record on the year.
Offensively, the Jays scored 18 runs and collected 31 total hits in the four games.
“Our offensive did what they needed to do to generate the runs we need to generate,” head coach Ed Servais said. “We have a much better offense this year than we did last, and I think they’ve proved that in the early going.”
Sophomore middle infielder and pitcher Jake Peter led the Jays with nine hits (9-15) and four runs batted in. He also recorded two saves with two perfect ninth innings on the mound, in the opening game against North Dakota and the final game against Pacific.
In the series finale against the Pacific Tigers, the Jays used an error, a sacrifice bunt, a single and a suicide squeeze to put a run on the board in the opening frame.
“[TD Ameritrade Park] forces you to do some different things offensively to score runs,” Servais said.
The Jays never gave up their lead in the series clinching 5-2 win.
Freshman first baseman Reagan Fowler opened up the second inning with a single and later scored, giving the Jays a 2-0 lead after two innings Sunday.
Fowler ended the game with three hits in four at bats, and two runs scored.
After allowing a lead-off single the first inning, junior pitcher Brett Swain retired 10 straight batters, before allowing two hits and walking one, giving the Tigers their first run of the ballgame in the fourth inning.
“For only his second start, (Swain) did a really good job,” Servais said. “He kept us in the game and got us off to a good start.”
Servais pulled the plug on Swain after allowing the run and freshman Taylor Elman forced the Tigers to ground out into an inning-ending double play to keep the score at 2-1.
The Jays responded with two of their own in the bottom of the fourth, after an RBI triple by senior outfielder Brennan Murphy and a wild pitch, allowing Murphy to coast into home.
The Jays added another run in the eighth.
The Jays’ bullpen finished out the game strong, allowing only one run off of two hits in five-and-a-third innings.
Saturday’s game against the Tigers was the Jays only blemish of the weekend.
The black-and-orange opened the game with a run in the first and eventually defeated the Jays 5-2.
The Jays managed to punch out 11 hits in Saturday’s game, but the men in blue stranded 12 runners on base. Peter had four hits in Saturday’s contest.
In Friday’s series opener against Pacific, the Jays picked up seven runs off of nine hits, in the 7-2 victory. Peter led the way with four singles in five trips and three RBIs.
The Jays scored one in the first inning, four in the second and two in the fifth.
Peter’s three-RBI single in the second, gave the Jays an early 4-0 advantage.
The Jays led 7-0 before fatigue started hitting freshman pitcher Tommy Stunc in his eighth inning of work. Stunc walked two straight and gave up a two-RBI double to the Tigers’ pinch-hitter, Brett Sullivan.
Stunc struck out eight, walked four, scatted three hits and gave up two runs in seven and a third innings to pick up his third win of the season.
“Tom’s last three starts have been really good,” Servais said. “We’ve been able to stretch him out a bit.”
“If we get [Stunc]to throw more strikes and become a little more efficient, I believe we can get him into the seventh inning of a lot of games,” Servais said. “And he can be that kind of guy that we need. He’s done a nice job, we’ll findout this Friday when you go into the conference play. The stakes get raised a little bit and you find out a little bit more about your players.”
Freshman Matt Warren retired the final five batters of the game.
Thursday’s home-opener against North Dakota was moved, due to the wet playing conditions, from TD Ameritrade Park to the CU Sports Complex.
The Jays prevailed 4-1 in the pitcher’s duel.
Sophomore pitcher Mark Lukowski picked up his second victory of the season, and Peter picked up his first save.
Seven Bluejays pitchers combined to surrender only three hits, walk three, hit a batter and allow only one earned run.
“When we throw strikes we’re going to be okay,” Servais said. “The only thing that’s held us back from time to time is that we sometimes lose the strike-zone, but we’ve got a lot of young guys. They keep getting better every time they go out there and it’s going to be fun to see how this whole things end up the last part of the year.”
“We’ve pitched better these last five or six games than we did early on,” Servais said.
The Jays took advantage of a costly error in the sixth inning that allowed three runs to score. Junior third baseman Federico Castagnini’s attempted to sacrifice runners on first and second and second to third with a bunt. North Dakota’s catcher fielded the ball and attempted to gun the runner down at third, but his throw went high and ended up in the left-field corner. Both runners and Castagnini ended up scoring on the play.
The Bluejays were scheduled to play South Dakota State on Wednesday, but the game was postponed to May 8 due to the below-freezing temperatures.
The Jays travel to Evansville this weekend to take on the Purple Aces in their opening series of Missouri Valley Conference play.
“The players are very excited about the opportunity to get into conference play,” Servais said. “Now that we’ve played 14 games and had about four weeks of practice we have a better understanding of who we are.”