GEORGETOWN, Ky. – The Lourdes baseball team (6-8, 0-0 in WHAC) lost the final three contests of their Kentucky road trip to bring their overall record to 6-8 heading into conference play.  

After sweeping Lindsey-Wilson in a three game series, the Gray Wolves lost 6-7 and 6-10 against Kentucky Christian and 0-6 against Georgetown College this week. Lourdes has played six games in Kentucky over the last three games and will be heading back north to take on conference opponents, starting this weekend.

Lourdes will head into WHAC play with the 7^th-best overall record in the conference. They will take on Rochester Christian in their first conference series this weekend. The Warriors are currently one spot ahead of Lourdes in 6th place.

Game 1: L, 6-7 @ Kentucky Christian
The first game in the doubleheader with the Knights was an absolute barnburner. Senior Landen Vance got his first start in a while for Lourdes, throwing four innings with three strikeouts and three earned runs. The KCU offense did decent against Vance but he held them off just enough to leave the game tied at four apiece when he exited the contest.

Lourdes' four runs while Vance was pitching came in the first two innings. Sophomore infielder Ty Zapadka made his first appearance and first start of the year at second base for the Gray Wolves. The Bedford graduate reached base on an error to score the first run of the game for Lourdes.

Landon Brown followed Zapadka up with a scorching two-RBI double to give Lourdes a 3-0 lead. Alex Dupree then tallied his 10^th RBI of the year, scoring Brown on a single to put Lourdes up 4-0.

Later in the sixth inning, with the game tied at four, centerfielder Drake Sekinger roped a single to score Alex Dupree and give Lourdes the slim 5-4 lead. In the bottom of the sixth, senior relief pitcher Ryan Butler came in the game for Lourdes and gave up two runs to the top of the KCU order. The Knights had regained the lead at 6-5 heading into the final inning, but Lourdes wasn't going to go away quietly.

Layne Vance started the seventh off with a leadoff single. Grant Craig then advanced Vance's pinch runner, Zane Mullins, to second base on a perfect sacrifice bunt. A batter later, Will Brose stepped into the box as a pinch hitter for Zapadka and crushed a single up the middle to tie the game. Brose has been a very productive pinch hitter and overall hitter for the Gray Wolves this season, consistently batting in the .300's.

Lourdes was unable to score Brose as the game remained tied heading into the bottom half of the seventh. Joe Smith came into the game for Lourdes to try to send the game to extras. However, he walked the first batter, hit the second, gave up a single, and then walked in the winning run for an anticlimactic walk-off win for the Knights.

Overall, Lourdes played well enough offensively to keep the game close, but the pitching staff's nine combined walks helped give KCU constant base traffic, and ultimately the win.

Game 2: L, 6-10 @ Kentucky Christian
Lourdes once again started off the second game with the lead, scoring the game's first two runs off a Drake Sekinger RBI and an Andrew Arnston double. The Knights quickly evened the game at two apiece after a few timely two out hits in the third and fourth innings.

Making his first start of the season on the mound for Lourdes was freshman Adam Lemon. The Swanton, Ohio native gave up just one run in three innings before turning the ball over to two-way player Will Brose, who ended up being credited for the loss.

Andrew Arnston gave Lourdes the lead back in the top half of the fifth after hitting a two-run homerun. Arnston now leads the team with three homers on the year.

The bottom of the fifth inning was clearly the downfall for the Gray Wolves in game two as KCU sent 13 batters to the plate, scoring eight runs in the inning on six hits. A couple of gap-to-gap doubles really broke the game open for the Knights as they each scored multiple base runners at a time.

Lourdes had a late power surge in the game as Jaxon Sanchez hit a solo homerun in the sixth inning. Brad Hughes followed up with a solo homerun of his own in the seventh inning. Hughes' homerun was his second ever plate appearance at the collegiate level. Unfortunately, the homeruns weren't enough to erase the deficit incurred in the fifth inning as Lourdes lost the game by four.

Game 3: L, 0-6 @ Georgetown College
Lourdes was shutout in the last game of their road trip against a very solid Georgetown College team. This was their first time getting shutout this season and first shutout as a program since March 19 of last season against Aquinas.

The Tigers' starting pitcher was Hideyoshi Kawahara. The ace from Tokyo has a 3.48 E.R.A on the season and was very efficient against the Gray Wolves offense. He only had one strikeout but walked nobody and gave up just five hits in the shutout.

Two of those hits were off the bat of Alex Dupree. The junior first baseman probably doesn't want the Kentucky road trip to be over as he hit five-for-nine with an RBI in the last three games. Drake Sekinger, Jase Kennedy, AJ Brinson, and Will Brose each got a hit apiece but couldn't cross home plate.

On the pitching side, freshman Ryan DeShelter got the start for Lourdes. He threw 4.1 innings, giving up four earned runs and striking out two Tigers hitters.

Stats
Heading into the conference schedule, Alex Dupree is by far leading the Gray Wolves offense statistically. The starting first baseman has a potent .391 average, which is 5th-best in the WHAC. He also has a home run and 10 RBI's on the season. Catcher Andrew Arnston leads the team with three homeruns, which is 7^th-best in the conference. After throwing three more productive innings against KCU, freshman pitcher Adam Lemon leads the pitching staff with 1.61 E.R.A.

Coach Bradford's Postgame Comments
"Obviously, the last three games didn't go as planned," Coach Bradford said. "We really need to do a better job of limiting the opponents free bases. That was really the difference between the last three games and the first three games of this trip. Offensively, we've gotten off to a slow start, but it's starting to come around. Going into WHAC play this weekend, the focus will need to be the same: limit the free bases and make them earn it. Then, we will need to string quality at bats together and be tough outs throughout the batting order." 

Next Up
Lourdes faces Rochester Christian on the road this weekend to start off the conference schedule.