UU’s comeback bid falls short at Cedarville

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CEDARVILLE – The Urbana University baseball team slashed a nine-run deficit to one, but couldn’t climb past Cedarville in a 12-10 setback in Tuesday’s non-conference game at Yellow Jacket Field.

UU fell to 13-24 overall and has now dropped 10 of its past 12 games, with eight of those losses by three runs or less. Cedarville improved to 12-21 and earned the season sweep over the Blue Knights.

Similarly to the previous meeting between these two teams, Cedarville jumped out to an early lead with four runs in the first and eventually went up 9-0 through five frames.

Outfielder Bradley Burkholder finally got UU on the board with an RBI single as both teams scored once in the sixth. The junior produced a career-best four runs overall in the contest.

Then, UU got the offense rolling with eight runs to get back in the game in the top of the seventh. After a pair of singles from Isac Franklin and Brent West, senior John Hale stepped up with a big double down the right-field line to make it 10-2.

Cedarville swapped pitchers and the new arm struggled to find the plate, leading to two UU runs on a walk and wild pitch. With the bases still loaded, Burkholder made the Yellow Jackets pay with a two-run single to trim the deficit to four, 10-6.

Another walk and wild pitch made it 10-7, and then Damario Brown came up with a clutch, two-run single to left field to finish the scoring with UU only down a run, 10-9.

The hosts responded with two runs in the next half inning. Then, Burkholder knocked in his fourth run on a sacrifice fly in the eighth, but that was the last run UU could produce.

UU saw action from six pitchers with only seven of the 12 runs charged as earned. The five Blue Knight relievers only allowed two earned runs over five-and-two-thirds of work. Lawson (0-1) was saddled with the loss as Cedarville’s Jordan Ralston (2-1) earned the win and Sean Masiakiewicz recorded his sixth save.

Brown ended up 3 for 6 to lead UU at the plate while Hale (2 for 3) and Burkholder (2 for 4) were the other Blue Knights with multi-hit efforts. UU was outhit 14-11 and the Blue Knights committed three errors on defense.

UU resumes league play at home this weekend against Fairmont State. The four-game series will feature doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday with Game 1 slated for a 1 p.m. start on both days.

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