CRETE, Neb. – The Dakota Wesleyan University baseball team has been as hot as any in the Great Plains Athletic Conference over the last several weeks. After winning nine of 12 league games to close the regular season, DWU kept rolling in the opening game of the GPAC postseason tournament.
For the third time in the last 10 days, DWU won a game over Doane College on the road. Wesleyan topped Doane 9-8 Thursday in Crete, Neb., to move into the winner's bracket to face Morningside College at 9 a.m. Friday.
Despite two of the top pitchers in the GPAC squaring off, DWU and Doane provided plenty of hitting, with the visitors taking control early and fending off a furious rally by the No. 2 seed. Wesleyan came into the tournament as the No. 7 seed.
DWU scored in each of the first four innings and built a 6-2 lead for starter Joey Fitzgerald (Fairmont, Minn.). Wesleyan broke the ice in the first inning with RBI singles from junior Neil Nagle (Oslo, Minn.) and junior Cole Wenande (Alexandria, S.D.), followed by an RBI single from Jared Neilan (Pierre, S.D.) in the second inning.
Wesleyan increased its lead to 5-0 in the third with an RBI triple from Wenande, who later scored on an RBI from sophomore Lakin Neugebauer (Mitchell, S.D.). After Doane got on the board with two in the bottom of the third inning, Nagle drove in his second run of the game in the fourth.
The score tightened in the fifth when Doane scored three times to make it a 6-5 game. The home team's defense aided DWU in the 7th, when Wesleyan scored three with the help of two Doane errors. The inning included an RBI from Neilan to put DWU up 9-5.
Doane closed the gap to one run again with three in the eighth, but closer Will Lutjen (Miller Place, N.Y.) got the last out of the inning and shutdown the opposition in the ninth to secure the DWU win.
DWU finished with 14 hits, including four from Neilan and three from Wenande. Fitzgerald got the win on the mound, allowing eight runs, six earned, on eight hits, while striking out six. Fitzgerald is 7-2 on the season.
The Tigers will play at least once Friday, starting with Morningside, which topped Hastings College in its opening game Thursday.