WESTFIELD, Ind. -- Indiana Wesleyan University baseball earned a thrilling 9-8 walk-off, come-from-behind victory over Spring Arbor (Mich.) in the Crossroads League opener today at Grand Park in Westfield, Indiana. The home games for IWU were moved to Westfield since it has a turf field and Wildcat Field was not ready for play today.
Spring Arbor earned a split in the doubleheader with a 2-1 victory in the second game. The two teams are scheduled to play at Wildcat Field on Saturday at 1 p.m. The games were originally scheduled to be contested at Spring Arbor but their field is unplayable at this point.
Indiana Wesleyan jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the opener with a Jack Collingsworth, Jr. (SO/Apple Valley Calif.) RBI single in the first inning and an RBI single by AJ Harris (SO/Temecula, Calif.) in the second inning. But Spring Arbor answered with five straight runs with three runs in the fourth inning and two more in the fifth inning.
Caleb Birkey (SO/Granger, Ind.) singled in the fifth inning and stole second base and took third on a throwing error. He then scored on another SAU throwing error off the bat of Jacob Murphy (JR/Hudsonville, Mich.). Spring Arbor responded with a three run sixth inning and seemed to put the game away, leading 8-3.
The Wildcats responded in the home half of the sixth inning with four runs to close the gap to a single run. Cameron Screeton (JR/Rochester, Ind.) drilled an RBI triple and he would later steal home on an attempted pick-off throw to first base. Birkey hit an RBI single later in the inning and would score on yet another Spring Arbor error to make it 8-7.
Spring Arbor did not score in the top of the seventh inning to set up the dramatic bottom half of the inning. Cody Calvert (JR/Godfrey, Ill.) led the inning off with a double and reached third on a Harris sac bunt. Screeton laid down a bunt single and Calvert remained at third base. Logan Tomlinson (FR/Trabuco Canyon, Calif.) followed with a bunt to score the tying run in Calvert and was safe at first base. Murphy stepped up to the plate with runners on first and second base with two outs and delivered a walk-off RBI single for the 9-8 victory.
Cody Jones (SR/Hartford City, Ind.) was credited with the victory while Shigley had three runs scored and two stolen bases.
The Cougars would earn the split with a 2-1 win in game two.
Spring Arbor scored the first run of the game in the fifth inning and added an unearned run in the sixth inning because of an error for a 2-0 advantage. Indiana Wesleyan cut the lead in half with a run in the bottom of the sixth inning when Screeton led off with a triple and scored on a passed ball. But IWU went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning to fall short of another dramatic victory.
