WICHITA, Kan. – Just as it was advertised coming into this Heartland Conference series, the Newman baseball team would find themselves in a shootout during both games of the doubleheader against St. Mary's, but eventually coming up short by one run in each game.
The Jets (22-12, 8-6 Heartland) and the Rattlers (22-14, 8-6 Heartland) offenses were firing on all cylinders and that made the hit and run columns pile up quickly for each sides pitching staffs.
Lucas Schauer was the starting pitcher for Newman in Game 1 and held St. Mary's scoreless in the first two innings of the first game. The Rattlers would strike first though, getting in two runs in the top of the third inning.
The Jets would respond right back in the bottom of the third, scoring three runs while having two outs. Nick Griffin would drive in the first Newman run of the game with an RBI single and Aaron Mack would follow that up, the next at-bat with a double that drove in two Jet runners, to make it 3-2 NU after three complete innings.
Things would stay quiet until the bottom of the fifth, when Mack hit another double that drove in a run. Brian Canfield would then drive in Mack, with a single up the middle, to extend the Newman lead to 5-2 after five complete innings.
The Rattlers would slither their way back into the game though, getting three runs in both the top of the sixth and seventh innings, taking an 8-5 lead into the Jets bottom of the seventh.
Newman wouldn't go quietly though, Mack reached base on an error and Canfield made them pay with a double to left field that scored him. Jacob Hamerle would drive in Canfield a few batters later on an infield single, but that was the last run the Jets could get across the plate in Game 1.
The Rattlers would jump out quickly in Game 2, scoring three runs in the top of the first. The Jets would take their first lead of Game 2 in the bottom of the second, scoring five runs.
The runs would come from a wild pitch scoring Canfield, an RBI single from Hamerle, a two run double from Lucas Norton and an RBI groundout from Tyler Bugner, to put Newman up 5-3 after two complete innings.
St. Mary's would get one run back in the third and then retake the lead in the fourth inning, scoring five runs and going back on top 9-5, heading to the bottom of the fourth.
The Jets got two runs back in the bottom of the fourth, off of a Garett Thomas double that scored Bugner and a Canfield single that would score Thomas, to cut the Rattler lead to 9-7.
Newman would tie the game up in the bottom of the seventh, from a Thomas single to center driving in one run and a Mack RBI groundout that would make it 9-9 after seven complete innings.
The Rattlers would score the eventual game winning run in the top of the eighth inning, taking a 10-9 lead, throughout the remainder of the game. The Jets would only get one runner on, in their last two innings of Game 2.
For the day, Newman scored 19 runs and had 22 hits but it wasn't enough to respond to St. Mary's hot hitting too in both games. Bugner would finish the day going 5-for-10 with one RBI and three runs scored. Canfield finished 4-for-5 with three walks, two runs scored and three RBIs.
The Jets will finish their three-game Heartland Conference series against the Rattlers at 1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon at McCarthy Field. There will be live stats and video at newmanjets.com.
