QU baseball team ready to roll into postseason after capping ‘nine-game heater’ at Rockhurst

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Brock Boynton called it.

Following a mid-week victory over nationally ranked Central Missouri on April 25, the Quincy University baseball team’s senior center fielder said the Hawks needed to go on a “nine-game heater” to carry the momentum of an historic regular season into the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament.

Sunday, seventh-ranked Quincy sizzled to the finish.

A pair of four-run innings gave QU a big enough cushion to withstand some bullpen issues and secure an 11-9 victory over Rockhurst at Loyola Park and finish the regular season with another GLVC sweep.

By following the victory over UCM with back-to-back perfect weekends — thus, the nine-game heater Boynton felt coming — Quincy secured the GLVC regular-season championship along with the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament, which begins Thursday at Mountain Dew Park in Marion, Ill.

Quincy (40-9, 27-5 GLVC) will face eighth-seeded Missouri S&T at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the opening round.

Not only did the nine-game heater earn QU the tourney’s top seed, but it also matched the 1999 team for the most regular-season victories in program history. This is one of six teams in program history to win at least 40 games in a season, and depending on how postseason play unfolds, setting the all-time wins record is possible.

QU certainly has the offense to do it.

Sunday, Quincy scored four times in the first inning, capitalizing on a pair of errors and a Lance Logsdon single to load the bases ahead of Austin Simpson’s three-run double. Zach Parks followed with an RBI single for a 4-0 lead. Rockhurst tagged QU starter Jay Hammel for two runs in the bottom of the first, but Quincy answered by scoring in the next three innings.

Luke Napleton had an RBI double in the second inning, and Boynton delivered an RBI single in the third. In the fourth, Quincy capitalized with the bases loaded by drawing two walks and Cole Erickson reaching on a dropped third strike. Gino D’Alessio added an RBI single for a 10-2 lead.

Hammel threw three consecutive scoreless innings before leaving after four frames, and Quincy’s bullpen took an 11-3 lead to the eighth inning. Rockhurst scored twice in the eighth on a two-run triple and plated four runs in the ninth. Rockhurst had the bases loaded when Logsdon caught a popup in foul territory to end the game.

D’Alessio went 3 for 6, while Simpson and Dustin Dupont each had two hits for Quincy. Hammel struck out five, walked none and allowed one earned run to earn the victory and improve to 5-2.