The Mavericks have found ways to this season to avoid two losses on days of a doubleheader to this point. Saturday afternoon was a different story, as Colorado Mesa University lost 4-2 and 5-4 against Regis University.
Last night’s efficient pitching performance from the Rangers leaked into Saturday’s pair of games. Noah Gotsis pitched a complete game and limited the Mavericks to two runs, one earned, on 8 hits and five strikeouts. CMU left seven runners on base in the contest.
Josh Shapiro drove in the Mavericks first run with an RBI groundout to third. Tanner Rempel scored after leading off the inning with a single to center. Zach McLeod walked and moved to third on the RBI, but was left stranded at third after Hunter Douglas grounded out to end the inning.
Reagan Todd was on the hill for CMU and pitched a complete game himself. He allowed six hits in and surrendered four runs. One of those runs was unearned after McLeod picked up an error in the bottom of the fifth. C Kobar reached on the error and later came around to score on Andrew Bryniarski’s single to left field.
Kobar homered in the top of the seventh to extend the Ranger lead to 4-1. Shapiro singled with one out in the bottom of the seventh and later scored on Dominic DeMarco’s single to cut the lead to two. Caleb Farmer struck out swinging to end the game.
The Mavericks had eight hits compared to the Rangers’ six.
A late seventh-inning rally in game two propelled the Rangers past the Mavericks. CMU, with a 4-3 lead and their closer AJ Landis on the mound, found trouble after securing the first two outs in the inning. Landis struck out the first two hitters of the inning but surrendered a walk to M Salvatos. Kobar then laced a game-tying RBI single, and one batter later, scored on Connor Rochon’s RBI double.
Chris Quackenbush got Will Dixon to fly out to end the game and pick up his first win after working two hitless innings.
Tanner Rempel continued his hot hitting from game one, putting the Mavericks on the board in the bottom of the first with a two-run single up the middle. Rempel finished the game 3-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored.
Chris Ramirez was effective in 5 ⅓ innings. He limited the Rangers to three runs on four hits, struck out five and recorded eight fly outs. Maverick errors were costly in this one, with an error by DeMarco in the top of the third that came back to bite CMU and allowed two unearned runs to score.
The Mavericks took a 4-3 lead after Garrett Ball doubled to center that scored Rempel. CMU had the tying run on second with one out in the bottom of the seventh but couldn’t muster the clutch hit to send it into extras.
The Mavericks fell to 24-12 and 15-8 in the RMAC while the Rangers improved to 21-19 with a 14-12 RMAC record. CMJU will look to even the series Sunday at 12 p.m.
