LIBERTY, MO. – The UIndy baseball team took both games on Saturday against William Jewell, with late inning heroics in both games from Easton Good and Nick Lukac to push the weekend series to 3-0 in favor of the Greyhounds.
The two wins today have now pushed the Hounds' win streak to six consecutive games, which is now their longest win streak of the season.
GAME 2 | UIndy 2, William Jewell 1 (7 innings)
Bennett Rogers once again pitched a gem today for the Hounds, going 5.2 innings while only allowing one run on four hits. He also took down eight Cardinals swinging, giving him his fourth game this season with eight plus strikeouts in one outing. Rogers has been on a tear recently, only allowing one run or fewer in five of his last seven starts, and picking up wins in six of those seven starts.
The bats were relatively quiet for both teams in this one. There were only five hits before the games' first run in the fourth inning on an RBI double from Justin George to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.
The Hounds only racked up six hits on the day, with half of those hits coming in the sixth and seventh innings when it mattered. Chase Mason smashed a pitch to center field in the sixth inning to square the game at one, before Austin Bode got on base with a double, which led to Good making the eventual game clinching double that drove home Bode on a throwing error to give UIndy the 2-1 lead in the top of the seventh.
Today's six hits are the second fewest hits the Hounds have had in a win this season.
Austin Bestul came in to finish the game for the Hounds, pitching the final 1.1 innings, allowing no hits and no runs, while also going one, two, three in the final half inning to seal the 2-1 win for the Hounds and pick up Bestul's seventh win of the season.
GAME 3 | UIndy 5, William Jewell 4 (11 innings)
The Cardinals began this marathon of a game by picking up the first three runs of this one a sacrifice fly single in the first inning and a two run RBI single in the third from Ben Click.
But the Hounds responded accordingly with three solo home runs in the fourth and fifth innings from Bode, Luke Smock and Mason to knot the game up at three after five frames. The Hounds weren't done though as Lukac's triple in the sixth inning pushed the Hounds out in front 4-3.
William Jewell responded with their backs against the wall in the bottom of the sixth from a Jonah Sanford fielder's choice that tied the game at four all headed into the seventh.
After a scoreless seventh inning, both teams were held scoreless for three more innings before Lukac hit his second home run of the season to break the deadlock and put UIndy ahead 5-4 in the top of the 11th inning. This is Lukac's first career home run to take the lead in a tie game for the Hounds, and his second career home run to occur in the eighth inning or later.
Bestul made his second appearance of the day for the Hounds, pitching all the extra innings in this one. Bestul pitched a stellar 4.2 innings, capping off his day by allowing only one base runner in 5.3 innings pitched and earning his second win of the day.
Today's four home runs for the Hounds are tied for the most home runs in a single game since the team hit six against Missouri S&T in 2022. This is also the longest game the Hounds have played since 2023 when UIndy beat Illinois Springfield in the GLVC tournament (5/18/23).
UP NEXT
The Greyhounds will look to close out the series tomorrow at 1 p.m. to complete their first sweep of William Jewell since 2019.
