Hawks complete weekend sweep, reach .500 mark heading into GLVC play

QUINCY — Ben Dahlof hit his first home run of the season and Joe Huffman drove in four runs as the Quincy University baseball team beat Colorado School of Mines 7-1 Sunday afternoon at QU Stadium to complete a four-game sweep.

The victory moved the Hawks back to the .500 mark at 7-7 ahead of the start of Great Lakes Valley Conference play Friday against Upper Iowa.

The combination of solid pitching and timely hitting led to Sunday’s victory.

Ben Draeger earned this second victory of the season as the right-hander allowed one run and five hits through six innings. He walked five and struck out six. Tim Reinholz earned the save with one strikeout and one hit allowed over three innings of work.

The Orediggers plated a run in the top of the first inning as Jackson Woolwine led off with a triple and scored on a one-out single. It stayed 1-0 until the fourth when Quincy’s Matt Mateo single and David Broughton doubled, leading to Huffman driving in the tying run with a sacrifice fly.

In the fifth, Quincy took the lead on Dahlof’s two-run home run. The first three batters in the inning struck out, but John Nisbet reached on a dropped third strike ahead of Dahlof hitting the home run. An RBI single by Huffman and two-run single by Jake Vitale extended the lead to 6-1 in the sixth.

Huffman’s sacrifice fly plated Broughton in the seventh to cap the scoring.

Broughton went 2 for 3 with two runs scored, while Dahlof and JD Ortiz had two hits apiece as eight of the nine spots in the lineup had at least one hit.