William Penn Drops Sunday Double Dip

Cedar Rapids--The Statesmen baseball team hoped a new day would bring new results, but unfortunately the tide did not turn as it was swept by Mount Mercy in a Heart of America Athletic Conference doubleheader Sunday.

WPU (16-23, 8-16 Heart) fell by scores of 12-2 and 7-5.

The visitors failed to get anything going until the very end of the opener, including being outhit 14-6 by the Mustangs (22-17, 17-7 Heart).

Down 12-0 entering the seventh frame, William Penn plated two, including Nick George (Sr., Sarina, Ontario, Sociology) rapping a single that brought in Froymer Ortega (Jr., Tallahassee, Fla., Wellness and Recreation).

Aiden North (Fr., Oskaloosa, Iowa, Industrial Technology) led the offense with two hits, while George finished with one hit and one walk.

Ty Harter (Jr., Galesburg, Ill., Business Management) held up through 3 1/3 innings of relief work, permitting just two runs on five hits, while striking out two batters.

MMU grabbed the first lead of the nightcap as well with one run in the bottom of the first, but the navy and gold answered with one of their own in the top of the second.  Blair Speas (Jr., O'Fallon, Mo., New Media) came in on a sacrifice fly by Marco Ayala (So., San Francisco, Calif., New Media).

The home squad went back on top with two runs in its next at-bats, while the Statesmen had their best run of offense in the top of the third.

Justin Martinez (Sr., Bronx, N.Y., Sports Management) doubled home George and then scored as well via a single by Speas.  Nathan Jessell (Jr., Napa, Calif., Sociology) then provided WPU's biggest base knock as his one-bagger to center field scored Speas and Hector Dominguez (So., Fontana, Calif., Exercise Science) to make it 5-3 in favor of the visitors.

Unfortunately, Mount Mercy still had plenty in the tank and recorded the game's final four runs with one in the fourth and three more in the fifth.

Despite matching MMU with 10 hits, the Statesmen were fairly quiet in the second half of the bout.  WPU did put two runners on the pads with no outs in the seventh, but failed to bring either around.

Ortega guided the lineup by going 2-for-3 with a walk, while Martinez (two doubles) and Dominguez both finished 2-for-4.

"We were beaten by a much stronger team this weekend," Head Coach Mike Laird said.  "Our outfield had some major issues corralling the fly balls which cost us.  We unfortunately also lacked execution smarts throughout the day."

Next Up: William Penn travels to Lamoni next Saturday to face Graceland in a Heart doubleheader at 1 p.m.