GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Lourdes baseball team (10-16, 4-6 in WHAC) split their opening doubleheader with Cornerstone (9-19, 5-5 in WHAC) on the road in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday afternoon.

The first game was a 9-1 blowout win for Lourdes off the strong pitching performance of Brenden Holland. The second game was a 7-9 loss in a back-and-forth slugfest. Cornerstone stays in seventh place in the WHAC and Lourdes stays in eighth.  

Game 1: W, 9-1
Lourdes won the first game against Cornerstone fairly handedly, inching their way closer to a .500 record in the conference. The victory on the mound for Lourdes went to ace pitcher Brenden Holland.

The Blissfield High School graduate improved his record to 4-1 and his E.R.A to 3.03, making his case as one of the best pitchers in the conference this season. Holland threw the first six innings with one run allowed on five hits. He walked one Cornerstone batter, but struck out nine. With Holland's pitch count climbing to 100, Head Coach Josh Bradford subbed him out for freshman Ryan Ragusa to close the door in the seventh.  

On the offensive side, seven of the nine Lourdes starters had a hit. Four of those seven had multiple hits in the game (Dupree, Brown, Brose and Sekinger).

Will Brose started off the scoring for Lourdes with a two-RBI double in the first inning. Drake Sekinger scored Brose on an RBI single in the next at-bat to take a 3-0 lead. In the second inning, a throwing error by Cornerstone's rightfielder scored Jace Bloomer from third base to give Lourdes a 4-1 lead.

The Gray Wolves tacked on two more runs later in the inning off another Will Brose hit. Later, in the fourth inning, Drake Sekinger and A.J Brinson hit back-to-back doubles to score two more runs. The pair of hits broke the game open at 8-1 and put any hope of a Cornerstone comeback to rest. Alex Dupree scored on another Cornerstone error in the fifth inning to give Lourdes a 9-1 game one victory.

Game 2: L, 7-9
Lourdes got the scoring started in the top of the second when Jace Bloomer hit a ground out to score Drake Sekinger from third base. Sekinger made it to third after hitting a single because of a wild pitch, a trend that would continue for both teams throughout the game with the slippery and rainy mound.

Lourdes' starter J.J Foti worked out of a bases loaded jam with only giving up one run in the bottom half of the second as the game became tied at a run apiece.

The third inning started with three walks from Cornerstone's starting pitcher Josiah Stairs. A subsequent single by Lourdes' first baseman Alex Dupree and a wild pitch made the Lourdes lead 3-1 as a pitching change ensued.

Drake Sekinger continued his hot day at the plate with a two-RBI single to break the Lourdes lead open even further at 5-1 heading into the fourth inning. Sekinger went an incredible 5-for-5 at the dish in the second game with three runs scored.

Although Cornerstone was outscored 14-2 in the first 12 innings of play in the afternoon, the fourth inning in the second game was a different story. The Golden Eagles' offense chased Foti out of the game after putting up two runs on two hits and two walks.

Freshman pitcher Adam Lemon came in for relief but also struggled with his command, walking two batters, giving up two more hits, and giving up four more runs as Cornerstone took a 7-5 lead into the fifth inning. Lemon was credited with the loss in the game.

The back-and-forth game continued in the fifth as Lourdes tied it at seven apiece. Sekinger hit a triple to score Landon Brown and then Jace Bloomer singled to score Sekinger.

A one-out sacrifice fly by Cornerstone's Michael Ruiz in the sixth inning gave the Golden Eagles' a one-run lead. After giving up a couple more hits, Lemon was taken out of the game for Zane Mullins, who worked out of the jam with the Gray Wolves still down by only a run.

Besides Drake Sekinger hitting a double in the seventh and his third single of the day in the ninth, no other Lourdes batter got a hit in the final three frames. Cornerstone tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth to win the game by two and split the opening doubleheader of the series.

Stats
Drake Sekinger went 7-for-9 with five RBI's combined between the two games. He accounted for 37% of the team's hit production in the doubleheader. He was a homerun away from hitting for the cycle in game two. Sekinger's average went up almost 50 points as he becomes the second regular starter to eclipse the .300 mark.

Next Up
Lourdes will take on Cornerstone again tomorrow for a 1pm doubleheader start time. The games will once again be on the road in Grand Rapids as Lourdes tries to take the series and move back to .500 in the WHAC.