Blue Hawks lose heartbreaker to #16 Arizona Christian

3/15/23

Sagan Osborne | Dickinson State Sports Information Director

TUCSON, Ariz. – Dickinson State gave #16 Arizona Christian all they could handle on Tuesday evening in Tucson, but two ninth inning runs gave the Firestorm the 4-3 victory.

DSU started John Koronka worked around a first inning walk and single, with help from catcher Derrick Calvillo who ended the inning by throwing out an ACU base stealer, to throw a scoreless first inning. A lineout and a pair of strikeouts retired the Blue Hawks in order in the home half of the inning.

In the second inning, a lead off hit by pitch came back to bite DSU as the runner scored on a two-out single to put ACU up 1-0. It didn't take the Blue Hawks long to respond however, as in the bottom of the third inning a two-out ACU error kept the inning alive. A base hit by Dawson Cortese gave DSU two on with two out and Richie Cortese hammered a triple to deep center field scoring both runs and giving the Blue Hawks their first lead of the game. Balas Buckmaster followed Cortese with a single and the Blue Hawks lead was 3-1.

Cade Kazmirski threw three scoreless innings in relief for the Blue Hawks, and Tate Williams added another to take the teams into the seventh inning with the score still 3-1 DSU. ACU finally broke through in the seventh inning as a passed ball led to a run scoring sacrifice fly getting the Firestorm within one at 3-2. The Blue Hawks threatened multiple times throughout the game, but ACU was able to wiggle out of multiple jams to keep DSU stuck at three runs thanks to some well placed defenders and strong pitching.

Carlos Molina Jr. and Max Anderson combined for four scoreless outs to send the game to the ninth inning with DSU still in the lead. However, in the ninth inning, the breaks started to go the way of ACU. The leadoff hitter reached via an error on a tough slow rolling play, and after a sacrifice bunt, another infield hit on a ball the went 20 feet gave ACU runners at the corners. A huge pop up settled into the glove of second baseman Keanu Calamayan for the second out, but the next batter hit a towering double into the left center field gap scoring both runs and giving ACU a 4-3 lead. DSU threatened in the bottom of the inning, loading the bases with one out, but were unable to push any runs across as the nationally ranked Firestorm sealed the win.