INDIANAPOLIS – The University of Indianapolis baseball team handed the Grand Valley State Lakers their first loss of the young season, splitting a pair of nine inning contests on Saturday afternoon.
 
After a rough first game, the Hounds, behind a pair of homers by Luis Vergara and Dom Brown, took the second contest with a 8-6 mark.
 
GAME 1 | Grand Valley State 5, UIndy 3
The Greyhounds jumped out early on the Lakers in game one of the doubleheader, etching across two in the first frame of action. The first came off the bat of Cole Hampton with the Missouri S&T-transfer lifting a ball to deep left field, allowing former and current teammate Dakota Sill a chance to sprint home from third. Later that same inning, Easton Good cracked one through the right side, scoring the speedy Caleb Vaughn from third and putting the Hounds putting the Hounds up by a pair.
 
A pair of runs in the second and sixth by the Lakers made it a 4-2 ballgame heading into the eighth where an Armen Torosian single to center brought the Hounds within one. However, a Laker bomb in the ninth iced the game and left it 5-3.
 
Carter Nowak, coming in relief of Jackson Kirkpatrick, went five innings of work, snagging four Ks on only four walks, saving the bullpen for the Hounds.
 
GAME 2 | UIndy 8, Grand Valley State 6
With Dawson Gabe toeing the slab in game two, he was recipient of some early run support with a perfect bunt by Vaughn eliciting a throwing error by the Lakers and a Sill single grabbed an early 2-0 lead for the good guys.
 
Laker homers in both the second and fourth, the latter with a runner on, evaporated the Greyhound lead going into the bottom of the fourth. But much like in nature, that evaporation turned into rain as the Hounds let it pour in the fourth, scoring three off of a Drew Donaldson single, a Laker error and a Hampton single.
 
Going blow-for-blow, the Lakers responded in force with a run of their own in the fifth to bring it back to 5-4 in favor of the Hounds. But that is when the door was shut on the Lakers as Brown and Vergara used back-to-back bombs to put the hounds up by three.
 

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Brown & Vergara go yard!! ???? pic.twitter.com/jPBIORkF4C

— UIndy Baseball (@UIndyBaseball) March 2, 2024

 
Brown followed up his day with another RBI in the eighth. The Lakers manufactured runs in the eighth and the ninth, but it was too little too late as the Hounds handed the visitors their first loss of the season.
 
Austin Bestul and E.J. White were quality out of the pen for the Hounds in the victory, with White, the 2023 saves leader for the Hounds, picking up his first of the season as the craft sidearmer closed out the contest for the Hounds.
 
UP NEXT
The Hounds wrap up the series against the Lakers on Sunday at 12 p.m. at Greyhound Park.