Franklin baseball was able to put its three-game losing streak to rest on Sunday and secure a pair of HCAC victories in the process.
It was just a bit of a white-knuckle ride at times.
The Grizzlies rallied for a 10-9 walkoff win over Mount St. Joseph and then held on for a 9-5 victory in the second game.
"Really proud of our guys for bouncing back and putting up two wins against a very good Mount St. Joe team today," Franklin coach
Lance Marshall said. "(Brayton) Belcher and (Chase) Wagner gave us good starts and we swung the bats really well."
Davis Wagner tied game one at 1-1 with an RBI single in the third inning, and he delivered another in the fourth to make it 3-1. The Lions charged back to take a 6-4 lead in the top of the sixth, and after the Griz tied it in the seventh on a
Garrett DeHart home run and a run generated by a
Davis Wagner steal, the visitors scored three in the eighth to go up 9-6.
Franklin broke even with three runs in the bottom of that inning, as DeHart doubled a pair of runs home and later scored on an error. After
Davis Wagner pitched a scoreless ninth, the Grizzlies got the win when
Ian Nuckles walked, took second on a
Nolan McLane sacrifice bunt and third on a wild pitch, then scored on a sacrifice fly by
Kam Seitz.
MSJ grabbed a 3-0 lead in the first inning of the nightcap, but Franklin answered in the second with RBI singles by
Dyllan Redmon and
Brady Bishop.
Drew Helton cut the deficit back to one run in the fourth inning with an RBI double, and Nuckles followed with a three-run homer to left that gave the Grizzlies a 6-4 advantage.
Up one entering the bottom of the sixth, the host squad put up runs in three straight innings. Helton blasted a mammoth homer over the scoreboard in the bottom of the sixth, DeHart scored Redmon with a sacrifice fly in the seventh and Nuckles clobbered a solo shot well past the left-field fence in the eighth.
Chase Wagner and Belcher worked five innings in their respective starts for the Grizzlies, who will host Earlham for a three-game series March 28 and 29.