The Monmouth College baseball team lost a 1-0 pitchers duel on Sunday at Ripon, finishing the regular season. The Fighting Scots (17-20, 12-9) will be the #3 seed at the Midwest Conference Tournament and will play Beloit on Friday. Lawrence won on Sunday to clinch the #1 seed while Grinnell will be the #4.
Ripon scored in the bottom of the second against Monmouth senior starting pitcher Toby Turnquist (Monmouth, Illinois). After a leadoff single and two quick outs, the Red Hawks took the lead on a pair of singles.
Monmouth’s first 15 batters were retired in order until Aiden Scott (Carrollton, Texas) singled to start the sixth. Hunter Wheat (Athens, Illinois) moved Scott to second with a sacrifice bunt but the next two batters were retired to end the inning.
Raul Guillermo (Miami, Florida) singled with one out in the seventh and he moved to second when Clayton Matkovic (Monmouth, Illinois) singled. With two outs, Matkovic was picked off to end the inning.
Still down 1-0 in the ninth Gabe Zeigler-Harris (East Peoria, Illinois) walked with one out. Daniel Lummus (New Port Richey, Florida) walked to put the tying run in scoring position but a double play left a runner at second with two down and a flyout ended the game.
Turnquist (3-6) took the loss despite allowing just one run over six innings, He struck out four and allowed six hits. Brandon Coats (Mapleton, Illinois) threw two shutout innings with one hit allowed and one strikeout.
MONMOUTH MOMENTS: Guillermo has a 15-game hit streak … He moved into second on the career at-bats list and into a tie on the career hits list with 167, matching Jake Starkey (’19).. … With 51 hits on the season he is tied for 13th … Turnquist moved into a tie for 12th with Connor Sharp (’20) and Austin Hardy (’17) for career pitching appearances with 35 … He and Saturday starter Ethan Zaayenga (Tremont, Illinois) are tied for 8th on the single-season games started list with 11 and are two of 13 pitchers to make at least 11 starts in a season in Monmouth history … The only other time the Scots were shutout this season was game two at IC on March 22 … Lummus moved into 12th on the career games played list with 132 … He also moved into 6th on the career at-bats list and eighth on the at-bats in a season list … Ripon leads the all-time series 26-25 and the teams had traded off winning the season series each of the last three seasons … The Scots will play Beloit on Friday with the time and location yet to be announced by the conference … Monmouth went 2-1 against all three teams in the tournament, beating Lawrence and Beloit at home and winning the series on the road against Grinnell.
***Courtesy of Nathan Baliva, Monmouth College***
