Beavers Battle and Earn Two Wins

The Blackburn College baseball team won both games of a doubleheader against SLIAC foe MacMurray College on Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, Ill.

In game one, senior Cody Unser twirled a 3-hitter en route to a 3-1 victory. In the seven inning affair, Unser struck out six and allowed only one run. 

The Beavers got on the board first in the fourth inning when Aaron Moody crossed the plate on a Jon Lowry safety squeeze. Moody knocked in the second run on a sacrifice fly that plated Cody Flowers in the fifth inning. Blackburn would tack on another in the seventh inning as insurance. 

The second game of a doubleheader was a wild one. Blackburn took a 3-0 lead into the bottom of the second before the Highlanders of MacMurray put two runs on the board. The Beavers would answer with two more of their own in the third inning before MacMurray knotted the game at 5 in the fourth. From that point on, starting pitcher Vinnie Birk found a groove and threw five consecutive scoreless innings which sent the game into extra innings. Birk struck out six in nine innings while throwing a whopping 160 pitches. 

Blackburn took the lead in the tenth inning when Moody scored on a Jose Osorio RBI groundout. Caleb Schupbach came in to close the door in the bottom half. He set down the Highlanders 1-2-3 for his first save of the year. 

The Beavers will finish the series tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 in Carlinville. But before that game, Blackburn will host a rare Division 1 opponent. Western Illinois University will come to Blackburn tomorrow morning with first pitch slated for 10:00 a.m.