Hawks eliminate any hope Bulldogs created by winning final three innings of series opener

QUINCY — It’s a simple philosophy with proven results.

Win the inning.

“I don’t know if you can hear me in the dugout, but I’m always saying ‘win the inning,’” Quincy University baseball coach Matt Schissel said. “Whether we give up four or give up two or give up none, go win the inning. If you keep winning the inning, good things are going to happen.”

After Truman State found a way to scratch across three runs in the top of the third inning Friday afternoon at QU Stadium and take a two-run lead, no one in the Hawks’ dugout panicked.

They won the final three innings. Luke Napleton’s two-run home run in the fifth inning gave nationally ranked Quincy the lead for good and an eight-run outburst in the sixth put away Truman State as the Hawks opened the four-game Great Lakes Valley Conference series with a 14-4 victory.

“When they have a couple bloop hits, a couple baserunners advance, a couple runs come across, you feel like a team you should be beating is just going to hang around,” Napleton said after the No. 8 Hawks improved to 15-4 overall and 4-1 in the GLVC.

“That’s not what you want with a team you feel you can handle. So getting back in the dugout and getting some runs is crucial.”

One run was enough to shift the momentum.

The Bulldogs strung together a couple of bloop hits with a triple and a throwing error to score three times off Hawks right-hander Spencer Walker, who had retired six of the first seven batters he faced.

“We had one goofy inning,” Schissel said. “That’s what it was, just goofy.”

Napleton put a charge into the comeback with a two-out solo home run to right field in the bottom of the third. In the fifth, Gino D’Allesio singled with one out, took second on an error and trotted home when Napleton launched a home run to left field.

The junior catcher has eight home runs in his last eight games and sits fifth in the nation with 12 home runs total.

“I was just trying to battle with two strikes, trying to refuse the strike out,” Napleton said. “I felt like they couldn’t strike me out with two strikes.”

Napleton went 5 for 5 with four runs scored and five RBIs, and his best at-bat might have come in the eight-run sixth inning.

Cole Erickson jumpstarted the frame by following Austin Simpson’s single with a two-run home run. One out later, Joe Huffman singled and Brock Boynton and D’Alessio walked to load the bases. Napleton followed by driving a two-strike pitch on the outside part of the plate to right field for a two-run single. The floodgates opened after that.

“One thing he’s done a really good job of this year is using the whole field,” Schissel said. “It opens everything up for him.”

All of the Hawks did. They collected 16 hits with Simpson going 3 for 4 with a home run and Erickson, Nolan Wosman and Dustin Dupont each getting two hits.

It took the pressure off Walker, who rebounded from a ragged start last week against Missouri S&T to allow just two earned runs over six innings while striking out 10 and walking none to earn the victory and improve to 4-1.

More importantly, Walker set the tone for the Hawks to chase their fourth straight series victory.

“The first game always sets up the weekend,” Napleton said.