FRANKLIN – The Griz baseball team stepped out of conference play on Wednesday (Apr. 12) afternoon for a pair of regional matchups with the DePauw Tigers.
 
The Grizzlies (18-7) clubbed six home runs in a wild opening game that saw them win 16-12. DePauw (8-14) denied Franklin's bid for a 10^th straight win in game two, taking a 13-10 decision in game two in a game that was called due to darkness after six innings.
 
The Tigers' win in game two also keeps Franklin head coach Lance Marshall stuck on 599 career wins.
 
Game One: Franklin 16 – DePauw 12
Franklin erased an early deficit with a three-run second inning as Anthony Smith knocked in a run with a sac fly and Dyllan Redmon cracked a two-run shot for the first home run of his Franklin career that gave Franklin a 3-1 lead. Noah Wood added to the lead an inning later with an RBI double but the Tigers responded with a seven-run fourth to take an 8-4 lead.
 
The Grizzlies began their comeback bid in the fourth with a two-run moonshot from Jonathan LaGuire and an RBI double from Tysen Lipscomb that made it 8-7 DePauw. Two more Franklin runs followed in the fifth but a three-run homer from the Tigers in the sixth flipped the lead back to DePauw at 11-9. LaGuire got the lead back in the bottom of the sixth with a three-run blast.
 
With the game tied at 12 in the seventh, Lipscomb launched a two-run blast and Matt Earley followed with a solo shot to make it 15-12 Franklin. LaGuire crushed his third home run of the day in the eighth to cap the scoring, giving him a share of the single-game record for home runs with three.
 
LaGuire knocked in six runs with his three long balls and Lipscomb had a three-hit game with two runs score. Sam Peck (1-1) got the win with two innings of work in relief.
 
Game Two: DePauw 13 – Franklin 10 (6 inn.)
DePauw raced out to a 7-0 lead through 1.5 innings before a solo shot from Wood got Franklin on the board in the second. Wood doubled in two in the second and Franklin plated five runs in the fourth to bring the game to even at 8-8 with four innings gone.
 
Darkness began to set in as the teams headed to the fifth and DePauw broke the dam in their half of the sixth with a five-run inning. The Griz got two back in the bottom of the inning but the game was called due to darkness when the sixth concluded.
 
Wood went 3-for-3 with four runs knocked in and AJ Sanders went 3-for-4 with a pair of runs scored. Garrett DeHart got the start and went one inning before turning things over to the bullpen where Will Butts, Noah Bennington (1-1) and LaGuire logged the final five innings.
 
Up Next
Franklin hits the road for a three-game conference series this weekend, starting with two games on Saturday in Cincinnati against Mount St. Joseph.