SCHAUMBURG, Ill. -- The Vikings baseball team battled bad weather in Sunday afternoon's matchup with the Dominican Stars, ultimately coming up short to move to 5-13 on the season. NPU—who won against the University of Chicago on a walk-off steal of home—found themselves on the receiving end of that same play in the 6-7 loss.
North Park got out to an early 3-0 lead, putting up one run on the board in each of the first three innings. They got the ball rolling in the top of the 1st with four straight walks, bringing Carlos Martinez across the plate, and Martinez again scored in the 2ndinning on a passed ball. In the 3rd, a sacrifice fly off the bat of Jim Zay drove in Nate Sommerfeld.
SP Bobby Bartlett produced three 1-2-3 innings to that point, racking up four strikeouts before the Stars plated their first run of the game in the 4th inning. The Vikings quickly earned the run back, however, with Zay driving in another RBI with a fielder's choice to score Justin Swanson and bring the score to 4-1.
Dominican found their stride in the bottom of the 5th inning with four runs to earn themselves their first lead of the game at a score of 4-5. Julian Ledezma came in for relief halfway through the inning, but all four runs would be credited to Bartlett who finished with a final line of 4.1 IP, 4 K, 5 H, 1 BB, and 5 ER.
After Ledezma got out of the inning, Tyler Banks took over on the mound and twirled two scoreless frames to take the Vikings to the top of the 8th. North Park's offense—which had stalled after the delay—got going again with two runs to take the lead back at 6-5. Joseph Perona kicked things off with a single, later scoring on an error to tie the ballgame. Justin Swanson followed that up with a single of his own to score Alex DiVito and put NPU back in the driver's seat heading to the bottom of the 8th.
The same 6-5 score held up until the bottom of the 9th, when Banks ran into his first trouble of the night after hitting Dominican's Anthony Nalbono with a pitch. Pinch running for Nalbono, Zach Rigdon went on to score off a passed ball to tie the game at 6-6. The Stars kept the pressure on and strung together two more baserunners with a walk and a base hit, and to the Vikings' dismay, a wild pitch and a passed ball ensued to result in a game-winning steal of home plate by C.J. Kalekas to give Dominican the 6-7 victory.
What's Next?
North Park has a quick turnaround on their hands, traveling southwest to face off with Eureka College on Tuesday, March 28th, with first pitch set for 3:00 P.M.
