MANKATO, Minn. - The Bethany Lutheran baseball team put up seven runs in the third inning on Thursday night as they defeated Minnesota Morris 12-2 in eight innings in the opening round of the UMAC Tournament. With the win Bethany improves to 27-12 overall and will now take on Northwestern on Friday at 3 p.m. The Cougars fall to 17-20 with the loss and will now play a must-win contest to stay alive against Crown tomorrow at 12 p.m.

Hear from the Vikings
Here's what head coach Ryan Kragh had to say about the game.
 
Kragh: "I thought Trent Ash was unreal on short rest. He keeps on getting better with every start. Hitters did their thing. Now we just need to keep playing good baseball."

Inside the Box Score

Ash cruised through the first two innings for Bethany, striking out five batters and working around an error and a walk in the second to keep the score even at 0–0.

Bethany opened the scoring in the bottom of the second, drawing a pair of free passes followed by a sacrifice bunt. Seth Jones then drove in the game's first run with a sac fly.

Morris scored their only runs of the contest in the third, using a pair of singles to plate one before another single a few batters later brought in a second, giving them a 2–1 lead.

The lead was short-lived, as Bethany erupted for seven runs in the bottom half of the inning. Eli Fest led off with a hit and later scored alongside Gary Swann on a Xander Meissner double. Nolan Spence and Josh Robb then each drove in a run with base hits, and Jones was hit by a pitch to bring in another. In his second at-bat of the inning, Fest hit a sacrifice fly, and a fielding error on an attempted pickoff allowed one more run to score, putting the Vikings up 8–2 after three.

Bethany added two more in the fourth as Jones delivered a two-run single up the middle to stretch the lead to 10–2. They tacked on another in the fifth but left some runs on the board after recording three hits and benefiting from two Cougar errors—though two runners were thrown out on the bases to limit the damage.

Ash remained sharp through the sixth and seventh before turning the ball over to Josh Robb in the eighth. The sophomore worked around an error to keep UMM off the board.

Bethany ended the game in the eighth, as Malachi Santiago reached second on a towering fly ball that was lost in the night sky and ruled a double. A pair of free passes loaded the bases with one out, and Fest delivered another sac fly to plate Bethany's 12th run and seal the win via the 10-run rule.

Swann led the Vikings at the plate, going 3-for-3, while Fest, Spence, Robb, and Santiago each tallied two hits.

Ash was dominant on the mound once again, tossing seven innings with 13 strikeouts while allowing just two runs.