By CONNOR GRAY, Assistant Editor
The Northwestern baseball team played against Southern Nazarene and did not have the result the team wanted.
The Southern Nazarene team, which has won four of its last five games, swept the Rangers.
“It was a good step for us to move ahead in the conference, but they played their best baseball and we didn’t,” head coach Ryan Bowen said.
The Rangers lost the game, 10-1, with the only run being a home run by Thomas Beiswanger.
The next game, the first of the doubleheader, was closer as the Rangers went up 2-1 after the first inning.
Dylan Norsen got an RBI single, and Yugo Hamakawa scored on an error from the right fielder. Then, Norsen made it to third.
Southern Nazarene eventually pulled together three more runs over the course of the game to win, 5-2.
“The first two games, we didn’t swing it enough, and pitching did OK,” Bowen said. “First game, we didn’t do as well pitching, but the second game we threw OK.”
The last game of the series also hurt the Rangers, as the bats came through early and pitching shut Southern Nazarene down. But the Rangers blew a sizable lead as the hitting and pitching was no longer effective.
In the first inning, Blake Hoffman and Norsen got RBIs to go up 2-0.
The next inning the Rangers got three as Hamakawa, Beiswanger and Hoffman knocked them in.
Southern Nazarene got three runs, but the Rangers responded with three more of their own, making it 8-3.
The Rangers went up 12-3 after getting four more runs as the team looked to put the game away.
Starting in the fifth inning and going into the seventh, Southern Nazarene chipped away the lead and jumped ahead, 16-12, to complete the sweep against the Rangers.
“We left too many guys on base throughout the series, and we’ll be looking to bounce back from this,” Bowen said.
On Monday, the Rangers took on Emporia State as the Rangers tried to rebound from the series.
The Rangers defeated the Hornets, 4-3, with Shaughn Kelly hitting a walk-off single to give the Rangers the victory.
The next series for Northwestern will be in Shawnee against Oklahoma Baptist. The first game is Friday at 6 p.m., and a double header is Saturday at 1 and 4 p.m.
