Dodridge, live bats lead baseball team past Davenport in home opener


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(Matthew Stephens/Senior Photographer)

Seniors James Teas and Dale Cornstubble each collected two RBI hits in the first two innings.

It was all the run support necessary for sophomore left-hander Rick Dodridge, who picked up his first win in CMU’s 11-5 victory against Davenport in the baseball team’s home opener Tuesday at Theunissen Stadium.

The win ended a four-game losing streak the team accumulated at the end of its seven-game trip to Florida.

“We’ve been off and on this season and, in games we haven’t had a lot of hits, we have still hit the ball well,” Teas said. “We have been doing a lot of work in the cages, and we feel very comfortable at the plate as a team.”

Dodridge (1-1) pitched six innings and allowed three runs, two earned, on three hits while striking out four. He pitched through four fielding errors.

“I thought he (Dodridge) threw pretty good,” said coach Steve Jaksa. “Defensively, we made a couple of mistakes, and I thought we tagged the ball pretty good. We talked about getting some consistency going in our bats so, from that standpoint, we were fairly pleased.”

Freshman shortstop Jordan Dean added two hits and scored three runs. Cornstubble, Teas, and Dean combined for seven of the Chippewas’ 14 total hits.

They were able to get to Davenport University starter Tucker Gernhard early in the game for seven runs before relief pitcher Zak Gonzalez retired 12 consecutive CMU batters.

In the seventh inning, with the team up 7-3 and Davenport threatening with two baserunners and no outs, CMU junior pitcher Mike Nixon picked off Davenport’s James Folske at first base for a big first out of the inning.

Sophomore Sam Russell came into the game in the seventh inning for sophomore Nate Theunissen and hit an RBI single to give the team a 9-4 lead. He then came around to score in a four-run inning.

“When you put seven runs up in two innings, you don’t go into coast mode, but you can relax,” Jaksa said. “I thought we were disciplined at the plate and, overall, we felt pretty good about how we swung the bat.”

Concordia

CMU (5-6) returns to action at 3 p.m. today against Concordia University at Theunissen Stadium. Jaksa said the team has talked about playing strong at home.

Junior outfielder Matt Faiman will be the starting pitcher for the Chippewas after scoring two runs and getting one hit in yesterday’s game as the team searches for its fifth starting pitcher.

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