PICTURED: James Pagni (photo by Scott Smith)
Although he didn't earn his first collegiate victory on the mound, sophomore pitcher James Pagni pitched well enough to win in the Vikings' 7-5, five-inning rain-shortened triumph over visiting Concordia Wisconsin Wednesday night.
Of the first six batters Pagni retired, five were on strikeouts – three of the looking variety – as he totaled seven in 4 2/3 innings of work. Senior Jimmy Roach earned the win in relief as he worked 1/ 3 of an inning and improved his record to 2-0.
After a dominant first inning, Pagni unfortunately got caught up in a little trouble in the second and the Falcons took advantage by plating two runs on an RBI double and a sacrifice fly. But NP quickly erased the deficit for the hard-throwing left-hander as they went for six runs in the bottom half of the frame. Caleb Layden started the barrage with a run-scoring single up the middle and a bases-loaded walk tied the score at 2-2. A Ray Cekus two-run single put NP ahead 4-2 and Anthony Bragg's RBI single after a run scored on a wild pitch gave the hosts a 6-2 advantage.
Concordia managed to push two more runs across in the third and fourth innings, but a Nate Simons' RBI infield single in the fourth proved to be the deciding offense as the game was halted by rain at 8:30 p.m.
North Park (12-18) returns to action Saturday when it travels to Rock Island for a 1 p.m. doubleheader. Â
