Sanders Has Hits in Eight Straight At-Bats, as CMS Baseball Takes Two of Three on Texas Trip

SEGUIN, Texas - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team came back from a 5-2 deficit to take an 8-5 win over Texas Lutheran on Sunday and finish its trip to Seguin with two wins in three games, as Julian Sanders batted 9-for-14 on the weekend with hits in eight straight at-bats.

The Stags opened the trip on Saturday with a 16-6 loss to Texas-Dallas, and bounced back in the evening to defeat Texas Lutheran 12-2. With the 2-1 weekend, CMS now stands at 6-3 on the year in its nine non-conference games before the start of SCIAC play this week. 

Sanders started out 2-for-4 with a homer against Texas-Dallas on Saturday afternoon, and followed with a 5-for-5, four-RBI effort against Texas Lutheran on Saturday evening with a single, double and triple (giving him the cycle over the course of the twinbill). He then capped off the weekend with a 2-for-5 effort with another homer on Sunday, ending the weekend 9-for-14 with two homers, a double, a triple and seven RBI. 

In the Saturday night game against Texas Lutheran, Mitchell Mashiko was 2-for-5 with three RBI, including a two-run triple in the fourth to put CMS up 2-1 and give the Stags the lead for good. Cade Kritsch singled in Mashiko in the fourth to make it 3-1, and Sanders had an RBI triple and came home on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-1.

Jack Potter and Sanders both had RBI singles in the sixth to push it to 7-1, and Sanders had a two-run double as part of a five-run eighth that enforced the 10-run rule at 12-2. Henry Connell started and went 5.1 innings to get the win, while Hamilton Finefrock (1.2 innings) and Andrew Blackett (1 inning) threw 2.2 innings of shutout relief. 

On Sunday, Sanders had an RBI single in the first and a solo home run in the third to stake CMS to 1-0 and 2-1 leads and give him hits in eight straight at bats, including his final appearance against Texas-Dallas and his 5-for-5 effort on Saturday night. 

Texas Lutheran pulled in front 5-2 after the fifth, before CMS started its comeback. Derek Seneker had an RBI single in the sixth, and a two-run error in the seventh tied the game at 5-5. Nick Wilson then followed with an RBI tripled to give CMS the lead, and Cade Kritsch had a two-run triple in the eighth to extend the lead to 8-5. 

Lucas Welch threw 2.2 innings of shutout relief to get the win, striking out three, and Jake Tracey had a dominant two-inning save, striking out four and allowing just one hit. 

CMS will be back in action when it opens SCIAC play against Chapman next weekend. The Stags will face the Panthers in a home game on Friday, which will be played at Redlands (CMS has no home field this year while Claremont McKenna starts work on a new science building in Arce Field's old location), and the three-game series will conclude with a doubleheader at Chapman on Saturday.