The Saint Louis University baseball team broke out the brooms over the weekend.
In their first three games of the year, the Bills (3-0) swept the Western Illinois Leathernecks (0-6) to jump out to a 3-0 start for the first time since 1997.
The Billikens played well enough to win in all three games, but had ups and downs throughout the series.
In game one, starter Wes Jaillet was dominant early and had eight strikeouts through five innings. Going into the sixth, Jaillet had allowed just two runs on five hits. As the sixth began, Jaillet’s pitch count began to rise and he appeared to tire. By the time coach Bob Hughes got Jaillet out of the game, the bases were loaded and there were no outs.
Hughes turned to junior southpaw Jake Baumgartner to try and put the fire out. Baumgartner came in and retired the only batter he faced on a weak ground ball. Hughes then turned to sophomore Dave Guntorius to try and close out the inning.
Guntorius did just that and retired the next two batters he faced. The Leathernecks picked up one run in the inning on a sac fly, but the bullpen kept the damage to a minimum.
“Jake (Baumgartner) did a great job all weekend against lefties. The bullpen really did its job in putting fires out,” Jaillet said.
Heading into the seventh, the Billikens trailed 3-0 and had stranded a small village on the basepaths. However, in the seventh, the Bills posted a five spot to take a 5-3 lead. It took a single from senior Jim Bredenkoetter, junior Ryan Murphy getting hit by a pitch and junior Andrew Slania’s bloop double to tack the runs on the board.
The five-run seventh marked the Billikens first lead of the year and gave the pitchers the run support needed for the win.
Unfortunately, the defense decided to make it interesting in the eighth.
With the bases loaded and two outs, sophomore Kris Weber induced a weak ground ball to junior second baseman Jake Friedrich, who fielded the ball clean and then threw it in the dirt. Friedrich’s error allowed a pair of Leatherneck runs to score.
In the bottom half of the frame, Friedrich came right back and singled to open the inning. Friedrich was then bunted into scoring position and later scored on Murphy’s two-run double. Murphy went two for three with three RBIs in his Billiken debut.
Weber then threw a scoreless ninth to pick up his first win of the season.
The second game of the series was the Corey Lawson show. Junior transfer Lawson started the game for the Bills on the mound, picked up the win and hit his first career Billiken home run.
In addition to Lawson, the Billikens scored early and often to put the Leathernecks away by the end of the fourth. After four innings of play the score was 8-1 and the game was basically over.
“Lawson was awesome. He had great command and threw the ball great,” noted Jaillet.
Senior Torrey Lombardo came on in relief of Lawson and worked two innings on his long road back from Tommy John surgery. Lombardo battled with his command and surrendered three runs, two of which were earned.
Lawson moved to 1-0 with the 8-4 victory and the Billikens went home looking for the sweep on Sunday.
Senior Brad Wehrfritz got the start on Sunday and was dominant early. It wasn’t until the middle of the second inning that a Leatherneck put the ball in play.
Wehrfritz was the beneficiary of early offense as well as the Bills scored six in the first inning. The Billikens took advantage of a shaky pitcher who had little-to-no control. The Leatherneck starter couldn’t get out of the first inning and had surrendered six runs in two-thirds of an inning’s work.
By the time Western Illinois stopped the bleeding they were down 6-0. But that is when the Leathernecks went to work and the Billikens went to sleep.
The Leatherneck bullpen did a magnificent job and held the Bills scoreless for the next seven innings. During this time Western Illinois chipped away at the six-run defecit and by the end of the eighth the score was tied 6-6.
Baumgartner and junior Dan Parker were able to hold off the Leathernecks in the ninth and sent the game to the bottom of the ninth tied at six.
Junior shortstop Joe Boyer started the ninth off with a bang and singled into left field. Boyer then stole second base and waited there with no one out.
That brought sophomore Kyle Wort to the plate with Boyer on and no one out. Wort looped a ball into right field that Leatherneck right fielder Troy Shelby got his glove on but couldn’t bring in.
The ball was jarred loose as Shelby hit the ground and rolled out of his reach. Boyer scored easily and the Billikens claimed the victory, 7-6.
Parker picked up the win for his one inning of work. The victory moved the Billikens to 3-0 – where they sit today.
After the series, coach Hughes looked on the games as learning experiences.
“I hope that we learn from our mistakes. Our pitchers pitched from behind all weekend which made them throw too many pitches early in the game. They can be better, especially Wehrfritz. He went to three and two to a lot of hitters and that is why his velocity trailed off so early,” said Hughes.
“I know that we only made four errors in a three-game series, but the defense needs to be better, those four errors were very costly. Four errors in three games is simply too many,” commented Hughes.
Bredenkoetter ended the weekend hitting .545 with four RBIs
“I feel really good for the first weekend. I put in a lot of hard work to get to this point and right now I feel very comfortable. When I get a little air under the ball and start hitting the gaps, that’s when I know that I’m swinging the bat well,” said Bredenkoetter.
The Billikens were supposed to take their perfect record to Mizzou on Tuesday and host Southwest Missouri State Wednesday, but snow postponed both of those games.
The Bills head to Nashville this weekend to face Lipscomb, Belmont and Vanderbilt.
The Billikens next home game is Wednesday, March 6, against Bradley at 2 p.m.
