With wind blowing out to right field, QU baseball team manages to split twinbill with Davenport

QUINCY — Spencer Walker tried to keep everything the Davenport baseball team hit in the ballpark despite winds blowing out to the short porch in right field.

The rest of the Quincy University pitching staff didn’t have as much luck doing the same thing.

After Walker tossed a seven-inning complete game and led the Hawks to a 4-2 victory in the opener of Saturday’s non-conference doubleheader, the Panthers responded in the nightcap by hitting a three-run bomb in the fourth inning, a game-tying homer in the seventh and the go-ahead homer in the ninth for a 10-8 victory at QU Stadium.

The teams will finish their four-game series with a doubleheader Sunday beginning at 11 a.m.

Walker, a senior right-hander, took advantage of the Hawks scoring four runs in the first two innings of Game 1 and escaped damage when the Panthers put runners on base. Quincy turned a double play in the first inning, limited the damage to one run in the third when facing a two-on, one-out situation, and got out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth.

After the Panthers cut the deficit to two runs by scoring in the sixth, Walker finished them off by inducing three groundouts in the seventh inning.

Walker allowed six hits with three strikeouts and one walk to improve to 3-0. Gino D’Alessio went 3 for 3 with two RBIs, and Dayson Croes was 2 for 3 with a double and two RBIs for the Hawks.

In the second game, Davenport grabbed a one-run lead in the first inning and extended it to 5-0 in the top of the third when Noah Marcoux crushed a three-run homer to right field. Quincy scored three times in the bottom of the fourth as Lance Logsdon had an RBI single and Nolan Wosman followed with a two-run double.

In the sixth, the Hawks scored four times to take an 8-7 lead as Luke Napleton jacked a three-run home run to center field. 

A solo home run in the seventh by the Panthers’ Vallone tied the game and Nolan Anspaugh gave Davenport the lead with a leadoff home run in the top of the ninth. The Panthers tacked on another run for a two-run advantage.

Joe Roscetti led off the bottom of the ninth for QU with a single and Logsdon had a two-out single, but two of the three outs the Hawks committed in the inning were popouts in foul territory.

Left-hander Sam Stephens suffered the loss, allowing two runs and four hits in one inning.

Logsdon went 3 for 6, Roscetti was 3 for 5 and D’Alessio ended 3 for 4 as the Hawks collected 14 hits.