Article by Noah Grant. Photo by the St. Cloud State Athletic Department/Nathaly Delgado.
The St. Cloud State University’s Huskies baseball team snapped its six-game losing streak this weekend, defeating the Minot State University Beavers in both games of a doubleheader on April 26.
In game 1, the offense broke out early as the Huskies scored six times across the first three innings. In the first, Liam Moreno led off with a walk for the Huskies and promptly stole second. Moreno advanced to third on an Eric Bello groundout before scoring on a Wyatt Tweet grounder to first.
With two outs, Ethan Navratil reignited the inning with a sharp double to right center. Blaine Guthrie would make it 2-0 with a single to right field, scoring Navratil.
In the second, Moreno was right in the middle of the action once again. The redshirt junior singled with one out, and advanced to second when Bello was hit by a pitch. The duo attempted a double steal, and Moreno would come home to score when catcher Oscar Pegg’s throw skipped into center field.
Bello would score just a few pitches later on another RBI groundout from Wyatt Tweet.
Another defensive miscue would hurt the Beavers in the third. After back-to-back walks to open the frame, Brayden Jacobson dropped a beautiful bunt up the first base line. Minot State pitcher Griffin Shearon fielded the bunt, but his throw went off the glove of second baseman Noah Gutierrez, allowing a run to score and Jacobson to reach second.
Liam Moreno followed that up with a long fly ball to left which allowed another run to score, making it 6-0 Huskies.
On the other side, redshirt junior Brady Nelson was in command for St. Cloud. The right-hander allowed just two hits through the first five innings while striking out four. Nelson had excellent command, locating his breaking ball well throughout the afternoon.
Minot State University would finally get on the board in the sixth. Connor Hill opened the inning with a double and scored one out single by Jake Orthner. The Beavers threatened to add more in the inning, as they put two runners on with one out, but Nelson induced a flyout and groundout to end the threat.
In the seventh, Minot State would have one final chance. Wyatt Toth doubled, and Noah Gutierrez followed with a single to center to score Toth, making it 6-2. This brought the day to an end for Nelson after six and a third innings of two run ball.
Connor Doolittle came on in relief and got the final two outs on flyouts to left and right field.
In game 2, it was more of the same for the Huskies as the offense got going early. The Huskies scored a pair in the second on an RBI groundout from Taehyung Kim and a single from Brayden Jacobson.
In the third, Eric Bello opened the frame with a single. Ethan Navratil then hit a laser over the right center field wall for his eighth home run of the year, increasing the lead to 4-0.
The Huskies would double their lead in the fourth, bringing eight batters to the plate and scoring four times. Liam Moreno hit the second homer of the day to left field, driving in two runs. Navratil would add another RBI with his two-out single, and he would score on a throwing error by Beavers pitcher Joshua Czyz.
Once again, the Beavers were held scoreless until the later innings, as Huskies starter Bryce Brassfield picked up eight strikeouts in the contest. Brassfield finally gave way to the bullpen in the seventh after a leadoff single.
A.J. Price entered for St. Cloud in relief, but after retiring the first batter the lefthander allowed three straight hits and three runs. That would be all for Minot, however, as Christian Lessman and Brody Richardson combined for the final seven outs.
The Huskies would push the lead back up to eight, as Austin Baumhover doubled in a run in the seventh and Wyatt Tweet drove in a pair in the eighth for the 11-3 final.
With the two wins, the Huskies improved to 22-22 on the season and 18-16 in conference play.
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