BOX SCORE

Anthem, Ariz. – Collin Janssen extended his hitting streak to five straight games to open the season, but the Concordia University Texas baseball team suffered a 12-6 loss to George Fox in its final game of the Arizona Desert Classic on Sunday, Feb. 13 at Boulder Creek High School. The Tornados finished the tournament with a 2-2 ledger.

The opening three innings of the game featured a pitcher's duel between Concordia's Colin Butschek and George Fox's Andrew Snyder. An RBI single by Derek Aldrich in the top of the second put the Bruins ahead by a 1-0 score.

George Fox built up a 7-0 lead by plating three runs in the fourth and sixth innings with Dan Winterstein hitting an RBI single in each frame to lead the offense, but the Tornado bats came alive to start a rally in the seventh. Janssen got things going with a double and scored a few plays later when Kyle Bieschke hit an RBI single with the bases loaded. Nick Kozole drew a walk to plate another run before Colton Gommert reached on a fielder's choice play, which scored Justin Beasley to make it 7-3.

After George Fox (4-0) scored twice in the top of the eighth, Concordia pushed across three more runs in the bottom half of the inning to cut the Bruin lead down to 9-6. An RBI single by Beasley, a sacrifice fly by Kozole and Bucky Bryant's single sliced the Bruin lead to just three runs. Gommert drew a walk to load the bases and bring the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs, but pitcher Jacob Brown got out of the jam by inducing a groundout to third base before his offense scored three more runs in the ninth to put the game away.

George Fox's Andrew Snyder picked up the victory to start the season 1-0 by pitching six scoreless innings. He yielded five hits and fanned three hitters while walking none. Butschek was tagged with the loss and dropped to 0-1 after giving up 10 hits and five runs which were all earned in 5.1 innings of work. He posted six strikeouts and did not issue a walk.

Concordia (3-3) returns to Texas and visits Mary Hardin-Baylor for a non-conference game on Saturday, Feb. 19 at 1 p.m.
-agate-
George Fox (4-0)      010      303      023     12   20    1
Concordia (3-3)        000      000      330      6    10    1
 George Fox: Andrew Snyder, Derek Blankenship (7), Connor Harris (7), Jacob Brown (8), Dan Winterstein (8) and Josh Rapacz.
     Concordia: Colin Butschek, Zac Darling (6), Gerry Morrison (6), Sean Thompson (7), Bryant Hernandez (9), Austin Rupert (9) and Collin Janssen.