Baseball Celebrates Senior Day Weekend With Wins Over Principia

CARLINVILLE, IL -- Blackburn College Baseball hosted St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rival Principia College in a three-game series over the weekend that also saw the team honor their seniors. 

Honored as part of the weekend were seniors Harley Carney, Royce Congi, Gavin Griffith, Kelton Keran, Brett Lander, Patrick Leonard III, Will Mason Cody Moore and Joshua Moreno. They also celebrated junior John Wolf who's career has come to an end due to injury. 

Freshman Joey Congi led the offense with five hits, three home runs, six runs batted in and scored six runs. Senior Brett Lander had four hits, a double, and three RBI's. Carney and freshman Johnny Duran both added four hits as well. Carney also chipped in with four runs and two RBI's while Duran posted a double, two home runs, four RBI's and three runs scored. 

From the mound, freshman Rudy Hinijosa tallied eight strikeouts with freshman Landon Harbach notching six. 

The three game series began Friday with Blackburn winning 3-2. Principia took an early 2-0 lead in the second inning but BC answered. Juniors Diego Perez and Dominic Medrano opened the inning by getting hit by pitches. A wild pitch then advanced the pair up a base. After an out, frehman Austin Wood hit into a fielder's choice  that allowed Perez to score and make it a 2-1 deficit. In the third, sophomore Andrew Medina singled and Harbach walked before freshman Santos Mercado singled to load the bases. Perez followed with a sacrifice fly to score Medina and tied the game at 2-2. 

In the fourth inning, Blackburn took the lead when Carney knocked in Wood with a single after Wood got on and advanced to third thanks to Principia errors. The run made it 3-2 which proved the difference in the first game of the series. 

On Saturday, the teams returned for a doubleheader. In the first game, R. Congi and J. Congi walked before Duran was hit by a pitch which loaded the bases. Mercado was then walked to score R. Congi and a wild pitch allowed J. Congi to score and made it 2-0 early. The Panthers scored a run in second but BC responded when Moreno scored off a Carney single. Duran added a run in the third with his first career home run.

Principia answered with six runs in the fourth but BC bounced back with six of their own. R. Congi reached on a fielder's choice and Carney singled before J. Congi hit his sixth home run this season. Duran followed with a single, Mercado walked and freshman Jeremy Mazariegos walked to load the bases before Lander knocked all three runners in with a double and made the score 10-7. 

Both teams scored four runs in the fifth. The Panthers held an 11-10 lead but BC saw R. Congi walk, Carney walk, and J. Congi single to load the bases which Mercado cleared with a double and make it 13-11. After a pop out, Mazariegos singled to score Mercado and moved the lead up to 14-11. 

In the sixth, Moreno walked before R. Congi hit a homer for the first time this season and pushed it to 16-11. The offense continued their output with Duran hitting another home run, scoring J. Congi and Carney in the process to make the 19-11 final score. 

The strong offense continued into the nightcap when J. Congi hit another home run in the bottom of the first which also scored Carney to put BC ahead 2-1. However, the Panthers scored four runs in the second and two in the third to push ahead 6-2. J. Congi hit another home run in the bottom of the third and made it 6-3 but Blackburn would be unable to score again, eventually falling 13-3. 

The Beavers are now 15-11 on the season. The 15 wins are the most wins in a season since the the 2013 team won 15 games. The team will return to action Tuesday when they host Rose Hulman Institute of Technology in a nonconference matchup. They return to SLIAC play next weekend with a three-game series at Westminster College.