Sault St. Marie, MI - The Grace Christian University baseball team traveled up north to take on Sault College Cougars from Canada for their first countable games of the 2025-2026 campaign. The Tigers are relying on a lot of young talent to step up and help lead the way this year.  

The Tigers got off to a hot start with pitcher Kaleb Blaskowski retiring the side in order. The Tigers put the pressure on offensively early on. A single, followed by a walk and a hit by pitch loaded the bases for the Tigers in the first inning with their first run coming across on a Daniel Wallington sacrifice fly in the first. The Tigers would then take advantage of back to back Cougars errors allowing three more runs to score giving them a 4-0 lead in the first inning. 

Blaskowski would come out for the second and dominate again allowing no hits and just one walk. The Tigers would grab the sticks again and 2 walks, followed by a Ben Anderson bunt single loaded the bases for the TIgers again. Damian Fernadez would then lace a single up the middle scoring 3 runs pushing the TIgers lead to 7-0. Dale Westphal would later get the job done with an RBI ground out to score Fernandez to make the score 8-0 Tigers. 

Blaskowski again would retire the side in order in the top half of the 3rd getting the Tigers back on offense. The Tigers would go in order in the third sending Blaskowski out for his fourth inning of work. Blaskowski would surrender two hits in the 4th inning but did not allow a run, keeping the Cougars off the board. In the top of the 5th Blaskowski would strike out two before getting a pop up to end the inning and his day. The final line for Kaleb Blaskowski, 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 SO.

Newcomer to the TIgers Breylan McPhaul struck out the side in the top of the 6th before the TIgers added three more runs in the home half pushing their lead to 11-0. McPhaul would then strikeout the first two he faced in the 7th before getting a pop up to end the game sealing the TIgers 11-0 victory. Ben Anderson collected 3 hits, and two stolen bases in game 1, and Damian Fernadez scored 3 three times and knocked in a pair of runs. 

Game two got off to a rough start in the top of the 1st,  back to back walks for pitcher Finn Mahoney, followed by a throwing error scored a run. Then a double play pushed another run across for the Cougars giving them an early 2-0 lead. The Tigers would respond with 6 runs of their own. Damian Fernadez, and Dale Westphal collected RBI singles. Followed by a Daniel Wallington RBI double, and a two RBI single from Moises Lerma who would later come around to score on a wild pitch to cap off a 6 run bottom of the first. 

Mahoney settled in for the second inning and made short work of the Cougars, getting the Tigers back in for the home half of the second. The Tigers would add two more in the bottom of the second with RBI singles from Daniel Wallington and Luke Lindsten to extend the Tigers lead to 8-2. 

Mahoney then cruised through the top of the 3rd with a couple of strikeouts, and in the bottom of the 3rd the Tigers had plenty of traffic but were only able to push one run across. Mahoney struck out the first two in the 4th inning but would end up surrendering a run. The TIgers would answer back with a run of their own giving them a 10-3 lead. John Sanocki would come in to replace Mahoney for the 5th and he would strike out the side, all on swinging third strikes. Damian Fernandez would lead off the home half of the 5th with his first homerun of the season, and Tommy Crowley would collect an RBI single pushing the Tigers lead to 12-3. The Cougars would get a sacrifice fly in the Top of the 7th but nothing more. Tigers would go on to win 12-4 completing the sweep in their first double header of the season. 

Finn Mahoney collected his first collegiate win with 4.0 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, and 6 SO. John Sanocki was awarded a save for his 3.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, and 5 SO. The Tigers pitching staff collected 25 Strikeouts on the afternoon over 14 innings and only surrendered 3 earned runs. 

Damian Fernadez collected 3 hits and 3 more RBI's in game two, and Dale Westphal also tallied a 3 hit game. Pavlacka, Wallington, and Lerma, also tallied multi hit games. The TIgers scored 12 runs on 14 hits in game two. 

The Tigers next countable action is next weekend for a roadtrip to PA on October 3rd and 4th against Penn State Greater Alleghany, and Penn State Fayette. Visit gracetigers.com from updated, stats, schedule, and results.