FORT PIERCE, Fla. (March 10) -- The Thiel College Baseball team dropped a back-and-forth 8-6 affair with Heidelberg University Tuesday afternoon from Bob Gladwin Stadium in Fort Pierce, Fla.
The Tomcats fall to 0-7 on the season while the Student Princes improve to 6-3.
Heidelberg plated 3 in the top of the seventh to pull ahead 5-2 before
Calvin Cackowski (Wickliffe, Ohio/Wickliffe) got the Cats back within 1 at 5-4 on a 2-run single to left center, scoring
Cole Sherwin (Karns City, Pa./Karns City) and
Colton Brightwell (Eighty Four, Pa./Bentworth). The Student Princes added 1 more in the top of the eighth to make it 6-4, but again, Cackowski answered in the bottom half of the frame with a bases loaded 2-RBI single to tie things at 6.
Cackowski reached base three times, finishing 2-for-4 with a career-high-tying four RBIs and one hit by pitch.
Brightwell finished 1-for-4 with a pair of runs. Sherwin had a pair of bases hits and scored once.
Heidelberg pulled back ahead in the ninth, adding the go-ahead run on a double and 1 more on an error to make it 8-6. Thiel's magic ran out in the ninth as the Cats were sent down in order in the bottom half, spelling the 8-6 final.
Mason Suss (Monongahela, Pa./Ringgold) got the ball for Thiel and worked a career-most five innings on the mound as he struckout a career-best six. After allowing a pair of runs in the first, Suss found his grove, retiring each of the last nine batters he faced across the third through fifth innings.
The Tomcats squared things at 2 in the sixth as Cackowski and
Kolten Kruszewski (Erie, Pa./Mercyhurst Prep) crossed home on a Heidelberg error.
Kruszewski finished 1-for-4 with a double and a run scored.
Zach Smith (Steubenville, Ohio/Steubenville) and
Andrew Eichenauer (Aurora, Ohio/Aurora) each had hits in the loss, with Smith scoring once.
Thiel has an off day tomoirrow before returning to action Thursday morning at 10 for a doubleheader with Kenyon.
