WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – Trailing by five runs entering the ninth, Ohio Dominican's baseball team had the tying run on base but couldn't come through, falling 9-7 to Minnesota-Duluth Thursday afternoon at the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational.

Down 9-4 in the final inning, the first five Panthers singled, including pinch-hitter Zack Dascenzo, who scored John Bowron with his base knock. John Simindinger followed with another RBI single to make it 9-6, scoring Jake Simmerman.

A double play quelled the momentum as Bryan Rudolph flew out to right field and Evan Shaw was cut down at the plate for the first and second outs. Christian Prince kept the Panthers alive, though, singling to center to plate Dascenzo and bring ODU to within two runs. However, Kyle Tisdale flew out to center to end the comeback bid.

With the setback, ODU fell to 6-4 on the season, while the Bulldogs improved to 5-6.

Simindinger, Prince, Shaw and Tisdale each had two hits for the Panthers, who had 13 as a team. Tisdale laced a pair of doubles and Simindinger knocked in two. Jake Simmerman scored twice and had a hit and two walks as well for ODU.

After Minnesota-Duluth opened the scoring with three runs in the second, the Panthers answered with a pair of tallies in the top of the third. Simmerman walked and Shaw singled to start the inning, and a groundout advanced them to second and third. Simindinger then grounded out to second, scoring Simmerman, and Shaw proceeded to steal home to make it a 3-2 ballgame.

The Bulldogs came right back with three more runs in the bottom of the inning, but again ODU was able to hang it with a two-run fourth.  Prince singled into right field and came in to score on Tisdale's double to cut the deficit to 6-3. Vince Bartolone singled Tisdale to third, and he would come in to score on Simmerman's sacrifice fly to center to bring the Panthers back within two runs.

Two more UMD runs in the fifth, though, stretched the lead to 8-4, and they would score another tally in the eighth to build its 9-4 advantage.

Sean Blackburn started and suffered the loss for the Panthers, working 4.1 innings and yielding seven earned runs. Kevin Clark was effective in relief, holding the Bulldogs hitless in his 2.2 innings of work.

Ohio Dominican takes on Charleston at 9 a.m. Friday.

Contact: Scott Miles
miless@ohiodominican.edu