ADRIAN, Mich. – The Alma College baseball team fell in a pair of games today at the MIAA Tournament hosted by Adrian College. The Scots loss a pitchers' duel to the host Bulldogs earlier in the day by a score of 3-1. Alma then dropped one, 8-5, to Kalamazoo College to end the Scots' playoff run. Alma ends its 2021 campaign with a 14-20 record. 

Chase Balhoff had an impressive performance with the longest outing of his career in the game against Adrian. Ballhof pitched seven innings while only giving up one earned run on two hits.

In the contest against Kalamazoo, the Scots' offense was led by senior Jaret Koin who had four hits in the game. Koin finishes his career as the program's all-time leader in hits (186), runs (131), hit-by-pitches (45), and games played (164). 

Balhoff looked unphased from the get go against the nationally-ranked Bulldogs as he earned two strikeouts in the opening frame. The freshman then faced runners on first and second in the third but forced a ground out to first base to keep the game scoreless. 

In the top of the fourth, Adrian took advantage of some Scots' errors to score the first run of the game. In the bottom half of the frame, Joshua Robinson stepped up to the plate and launched a deep fly ball to right field for a home run for the second-straight day to tie it up at 1-all. 

Balhoff continued to dominate, retiring all nine batters he faced through the fifth, sixth, and seven innings. After giving up a walk in the eighth, he was taken out of the game. The Bulldogs were able to bring in two runs in the inning to take back the lead.

Koin tripled with two outs in the bottom of the eighth but the Scots were unable to drive him home. Alma then went 1-2-3 in the ninth to fall in a tight one to top-seeded Adrian.

Kalamazoo put three runs on the board in the top of the first to put Alma an early hole. The Scots answered with one run in the bottom of the inning with Avery Carnicom driving home Kevin Tuttle on a double off the right field wall. 

Kalamazoo added two runs in the second, one in the fourth and another in the sixth to take a commanding 7-1 advantage. But that's when the Scots' bats started to come around. In the bottom of the sixth, Koin hit his second triple of the day that scored both Nolan Chillcut and Nick Hartner. Koin would then score on a Tuttle ground out to make it a 7-4 ball game.

The Hornets put another run on the board in the top of the seventh and the Scots came back with a run of their own with Alex Dwan hitting a sacrifice fly that plated Robinson to cut the deficit back to three.

The score remained the same all the way to the bottom of the ninth. The Scots drew three-straight walks to open the inning and put the tying run on base. Alma's next three batters all went down though to end the game and the Scots' season.

Carnicom and Zach Schirmer each collected two hits in the loss to Kalamazoo. Drew Koenig pitched a scoreless inning out of the bullpen to keep the deficit at three.

Alma graduates its 2021 senior class of Koin, Schirmer, Dwan, Hartner, Aaron Saenz, Dylan Dzendzel, Ben Skinner, and student manager Logan Peters.

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