FOND DU LAC, Wis. - Marian University baseball (8-24, 0-14 NACC) tied a season-high with 17 base knocks in a 10-4 non-conference win against Ripon.

After Ripon was on the board first in the top of the second, Tyler Thompson doubled to left center to start off the bottom half of the inning.  After a strike out and ground out that advanced Thompson to third Marty Schechtel had a clutch two-out knock up the middle to knot the game at 1-1.

The RedHawks quickly retook the lead, however, with a run in the top of the third.  MU answered in the bottom of the fourth with Mitchel Buss leading off the inning with a double to left field.  Thompson continued his hot next hitting in the next at bat with a single down the left field line to score Buss.

Ripon managed to answer once again in the top half of the next inning before Marian took their first lead of the game in the bottom of the fifth.  Four consecutive singles opened the inning for the Marian offense with an RBI single from Tony Grannis followed by a sacrifice fly from Buss to put MU ahead 4-3.

As Ripon had done all game, they were able to answer and tie the game at 5-5 in the top of the sixth.  The Marian offense went to work in the bottom half, however, and broke the game open with the help of a key error. 

Jordan Bill started the six-run inning with a double to left field and later scored off a single from Josh Bartelt to tie the game.  Then with runners on first and second and two outs, a key error from the RC second baseman sparked the MU offense to five unearned runs.  Buss, Thompson, and Schaefer each had RBI hits, and Schuyler Rath drew a walk to bring in another run to give Marian a 10-4 lead.

From there the combo of Jordan Bock and Hunter Veness were able to shut down Ripon and close out the game allowing no base runners in the final three innings of the game.

The Sabres would also have the lead off man reach in five innings and managed to plate at least one run in four of those frames.  MU also improved to 8-3 on the season when outhitting their opponent.

Three different Sabres would record multi-hit games led by Thompson who went 3-4 with three runs batted in and two runs scored along with one walk.

Bock (3-2) earned the win in relief of Connor Nelson going 3.2 innings and only allowing one earned run off of three hits.

Marian hosts senior day Saturday, April 30 at noon when the Sabres welcome Concordia Wisconsin to Herr-Baker Field.

--FightBlueFight--