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Box Score 4 Kingsport, TN - The Tigers traveled south for the week of spring break, playing two games in Florida before heading back up to Tennessee for a 4-game series against Alice Lloyd College before returning home. As described in the previous article, the team opened the week in the win column, defeating Mid Atlantic Christian University 10-5 on Tuesday in Florida. However they would drop game two of the doubleheader against Baptist University of Florida 3-7.
With a travel day and a scheduled off day on Thursday, the boys reset with a team hike in Bays Mountain State Park before returning to action on Friday at Hunter Wright Stadium to take on the Eagles of Alice Lloyd.
Friday's doubleheader did not start off how the Tigers anticipated. Giving up 6 runs in the second inning of the game, it was too much of a deficit to overcome. Despite some late inning offense to try and spark a rally, Grace lost game one 3-12.
Game two however would look differently as Freshman
Parker Curell took the mound for his second career start. The knuckleballer had everything working that day and threw a complete game giving up just 4 hits and striking out 5 in 7 innings of work. The Grace bats only collected one more hit than the Eagles in the game, but they were big ones.
Reagan Mutschler hit a solo shot in the second inning to put the Tigeers up 1-0, and another one in the 6th to regain the lead 2-1. Grace would add an insurance run as
Ben Anderson came around to score on an Alice Lloyd error to bring the scoree to 3-1. That would be all Curell needed as he slammed the door in the 7th to give Grace the win.
Saturday's games were played in beautiful 70 degree, sunny weather. No better way to cap off spring break than to get two more wins and take the series, that was the goal.
In game three of the weekend, senior
Kaleb Blaskowski took the bump and hung a zero in the first inning to get the Tigers going. It wouldn't take long for Grace to jump out to a lead with
Aiden Pavlacka bringing in Mo Lerma on a two out RBI single int he second inning. The Tigers plated another in the third inning off a
Dale Westphal double and a
Gavin Kleidon single to bring him home. Blaskowski kept rolling and threw six innings of scoreless baseball until the last inning. Grace put up one more insurance run in the top of the 7th from an RBI groundout by
Reagan Mutschler, bringing home senior
Dylan Thomas. In the bottom of the 7th, an error came around to score, but it wouldn't be enough for the Eagles and Blaskowski earned the complete game win for the Tigers, 3-1.
Game four saw a lot of action early as Grace looked to lock in the series. In the first inning,
Gavin Kleidon placed a triple into the left field corner bringing around
Dale Westphal for the first run of the game. Mutschler brought in Kleidon with another RBI groundout to put the Tigers up 2-0. Sophomore
Breylan McPhaul took the hill for Grace and sat the Eagles down in order to start the game. However, Alice Lloyd was not out of the fight yet. After two hits, a walk and an error, the Eagles plated three runs to take the lead. The score remained 2-3 until the fifth inning when the Tigers were able to break through with a two-out rally. A double off the center field wall from
Reagan Mutschler brought around Kleidon, and a Mo Lerma single up the middle was able to score Mutschler, making the score 4-3. The offense wasn't done though. In the top of the 7th the bats exploded with a
Reagan Mutschler double, followed by a Mo Lerma triple. followed by back to back singles by
Daniel Wallington and
Ben Anderson to bring the score to 6-3. That was all McPhaul needed. After clutch big double play,
Aiden Pavlacka caught the final out in centerfield to close out a big series win for Grace on the road.
The Grace pitching staff hurled three complete games in the series and allowed just 5 total runs across those three games. The Tigers will look to continue that success next weekend against Albion College back in Michigan, with their home opener being on Saturday, March 21st.
