Hawks guarantee themselves split with Prairie Stars, go into Sunday looking to win GLVC series

QUINCY — A split of the first Great Lakes Valley Conference series of the season is guaranteed.

Still, the Quincy University baseball team wants more.

The Hawks want to send a definitive message they intend to compete for league and region titles, and to do so, it will take putting an exclamation point on the weekend.

Quincy split Saturday’s doubleheader with 13th-ranked Illinois-Springfield, winning the opener 11-6 behind a complete-game performance from southpaw Tyler Carpenter and dropping the nightcap 8-3 after surrendering seven runs over the final three innings.

It means Sunday’s 1 p.m. series finale could win the series for the Hawks, who were picked behind the Prairie Stars in the GLVC’s Blue Division in the preseason coaches poll. Senior right-hander Jay Hammel will get the start for QU.

If he can mimic what the first three starters did, the Hawks could be in business.

Senior right-hander Spencer Walker worked 8 ⅓ innings in Friday’s series opener, and Carpenter followed suit in the second game of the series. He went seven innings, allowing six runs and seven hits with seven strikeouts and five walks.

Carpenter benefitted from major run support. After allowing the Prairie Stars to score three times in the top of the second inning, the Hawks scored six times in the bottom of the frame, highlighted by a two-run single by Joe Roscetti and RBI singles with two outs by Zach Parks and Dayson Croes.

Tanner Dreher jacked a two-run homer in the fifth, and Andrew Buescher followed with a solo home run in the sixth. Roscetti finished 3 for 3, while Gino D’Alessio, Croes and Dreher had two hits apiece.

In the nightcap, senior right-hander Alex Pribyl started for the first time in his career and fashioned four solid innings. He worked around walking the bases loaded in the first inning by allowing just one run by striking out the final two batters of the frame.

Pribyl struck out the final two batters in both the third and fourth innings. Coming back out for the fifth inning, Pribyl ran into problems as he allowed a leadoff home run to Prairie Stars All-American Zion Pettigrew and surrendered a two-out run on a wild pitch to fall behind 3-2.

In the sixth, the Prairie Stars tacked on a run with a bases-loaded groundout, and they added four runs as Cruz Meier inherited a bases-loaded situation with no outs and gave up a two-run single to the first batter he faced. Griffin Kirn allowed four runs and four hits in one inning of relief.

The Hawks (11-10, 2-1 GLVC) were limited to just five hits by four Prairie Stars pitchers with catcher Luke Napleton collecting two singles.