CMS Baseball Defeats Carleton, Falls to Puget Sound in Friday Split

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Henry Connell started and threw six shutout innings for his first win as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team defeated Carleton 7-2 in its first of two games on Friday afternoon at Arce Field.

CMS also dropped a second game to Puget Sound 12-5, as the three teams meet for five total games over three days. With the split, the Stags now stand at 11-9 on the year, while Carleton slips to 3-7 and Puget Sound improves to 11-12. 

Connell allowed just four singles, two of which were of the dribbler variety in the infield, struck out two and walked none to get the win in his first start. He had thrown two innings for the Stags previously, an inning of relief at Emory and another against La Verne last weekend. 

The Stags would get all the offense they would need in the second inning, as Jack Potter came home on a throwing error, and Marco Castillo belted a two-run home run to make it a 3-0 game. CMS tacked on two more in the third as Potter had an RBI groundout and Aidan Booth hustled out a third strike in the dirt to allow Paul Roche to score from third. 

A sacrifice fly from Booth stretched the lead to 6-0, and after Carleton got two runs back in the seventh, Brandon Rho capped off the scoring with an RBI single in the bottom half. Spencer McCann threw two scoreless innings to close it out. 

In the nightcap, Potter hit a two-run homer, and Cade Kritsch and David Mathias added solo shots, but it wasn't enough as Puget Sound scored seven runs in the first two innings and took a 12-5 win.

The Stags did get some solid efforts out of the bullpen, as William Stewart retired all four batters he faced, three by strikeout, after coming on with the bases loaded and getting a strikeout to end the fifth. Matthew Baker-Dunn then threw two hitless innings, striking out three, and Lucas Mirizzi threw a scoreless ninth. Kieran Sidebotham and Trishan Amruthur had pinch hit singles for their first collegiate hits. 

CMS will face Carleton a second time tomorrow at 3 p.m., before facing Puget Sound a second time on Sunday at 12 noon.