The Alma College baseball team played two games at Rose-Hulman on Saturday in their annual Baseball Tournament. The Scots ended up dropping a tight 5-4 contest against the host Fightin' Engineers in the first game and then lost 3-0 to Carthage College (WI) in the evening.

The two games scheduled for Sunday afternoon have now been CANCELLED due to expected cold weather. No makeup is expected.

With losses in the two games, Alma fell to 6-4 on the season, while Rose-Hulman improved to 5-4 and Carthage 2-2 in 2014.

Rose-Hulman Game

"Against Rose-Hulman we played a tight game as I thought Thompson had a great performance on the mound and we had an errorless game," said Alma Head Coach Scott Kingston. "We had some mental blunders that don't show up in the stats as we did some things well but didn't execute everything. It was definitely a winnable game but we came up short."

In the afternoon game, Rose-Hulman scored a run in the bottom of the first inning off of Alma Sr. P Kevin Thompson (Petoskey/Petoskey) when they stole home to take a 1-0 lead. In the top of the third, the Scots fought back with three runs to take a 3-1 advantage.

In the frame, So. C A.J. Acton (Temecula, CA/Linfield Christian) reached on an error and scored when Jr. DH Mostafa Ghonim (East Elmhurst, NY/W.C. Bryan) hit a two-run homerun. Alma added another run when Jr. LF Yoan Delrosa (Bronx, NY/Morris) singled and eventually scored on a groundout by Jr. 1B Blake Leddy (Saginaw/Swan Valley).

The Fightin' Engineers scored three runs of their own in the bottom of the third inning and regained the lead at 4-3. In the inning, Rose-Hulman notched three hits and a stolen base off of Thompson in the rally.

In the top of the fifth inning, Alma would tie the game at 4-4 as Delrosa singled with one out and moved to third on a single by Sr. RF Alex Kravat (Auburn/Bay City Western). He then scored on a two-out single by Jr. 2B Juan Dominguez (New York, NY/Blue Ridge).

The game remained tied until the bottom of the seventh inning. Rose-Hulman was able to take a 5-4 lead when they used a double and a single to scratch across the go-ahead run. After the two-bagger, Thompson was replaced on the mound by So. P Philip Jock (Wales/Memphis).

The Scots would continue to trail into the ninth inning but didn't go down without making it interesting. With one out, Delrosa doubled (his third hit of the day), putting him in scoring position. However, Kravat would strike out looking and Leddy would pop out to the shortstop, ending the rally and the ballgame.

Thompson pitched 6.2 innings and allowed seven hits, five earned runs and one walk to go with three strikeouts. Jock finished up the final 1.1 innings and gave up two hits and had one strikeout. Delrosa went three for four with two runs scored, while Dominguez and Sr. 3B Bryan Goostrey (Jackson/East Jackson) each had two hits.

Carthage Game

The evening contest against Carthage College (WI) was a tight defensive affair throughout the nine innings. The Red Men scored two runs in the top of the third and added one in the fifth to earn a 3-0 victory over the Scots.

"Our starting pitcher Nash went two and a third innings and Strickler was lights out in relief," said Kingston. "Bottom line was that we just didn't hit with runners in scoring position. We played another clean and crisp game overall, but couldn't get a hit when it counted."

Carthage used a double, a single and an Alma defensive error to get two runs in their half of the third inning. They followed that up with a single run in the fifth on a two-out rally that started with a walk and was followed by two hits. That was the three runs the Red Men would need to notch their second win of the season.

The Scots had runners on in every inning but the fifth and sixth, but would ultimately finish the contest with 12 men left on base. The tone was set in the bottom of the first frame, when Alma was able to load the bases on three walks but could not push one over the plate. For the game, the Scots had seven total hits and the Carthage pitchers walked four batters.

Delrosa was the only Alma player with more than one hit (two for four) and the Scots finished with nine strikeouts at the plate. So. P Colin Nash (Brighton/Brighton) took the loss for Alma as he gave up three hits and two unearned runs. Jr. P Eric Strickler (Lapeer/Lapeer East) gave up five hits and had nine strikeouts in relief.

The next games on the schedule for the Scots are next Saturday, March 22 when Olivet College is supposed to be at Klenk Park for the start of the MIAA season.

However, field conditions will be monitored closely this upcoming week to determine if it is playable. Please check back on the website for further updates.