Oskaloosa–The Statesmen baseball team entered Sunday with an outside chance of making the league tournament, but those hopes were extinguished as William Penn only split a Heart of America Athletic Conference doubleheader with Grand View.
WPU (19-28, 8-22 Heart) won the first game 4-2, but lost the second outing 11-2. The loss, coupled by a Graceland win, mathematically eliminates the navy and gold from making the Heart Tournament as the Yellowjackets (10-18 Heart) are now three games ahead (four games left) and hold the tiebreaker over the Statesmen (two games left). The fifth and final spot from the North will go to either GU or Mount Mercy.
William Penn will close its season next Saturday by hosting Evangel in a Heart doubleheader at 1 p.m. The twinbill will also serve as Senior Day.
Grand View scored Sunday’s first run in the top of the first, but the hosts answered with three in the bottom half. Fabian Gutierrez (Jr., Selah, Wash., Communications) began the onslaught as he singled in Julian Villegas (Jr., Wilmington, Calif., Sociology). Colton Johnson (Sr., Westminster, Calif., Physical Education) then plated Jared Goodman (Jr., Huntington Beach, Calif., Physical Education), while Felipe Hernandez (Jr., North Hollywood, Calif., Sociology), who was playing in the field for the first time all year, brought in Gutierrez on one more single.
More early runs were tallied in the second as the Vikings (26-19, 16-10 Heart) put one on the board in the top half and the Statesmen matched it. Jeysen Delgado (Jr., Harbor City, Calif., Kinesiology) provided the score as he led off with his seventh home run of 2017. He is now tied with Anthony Aguila (Jr., Highland, Calif., Kinesiology) for the team lead.
The bats then immediately went quiet as donuts were posted the remainder of the matchup. Both teams had legitimate chances to score in the fifth, but nothing came across and William Penn, which managed a 6-4 edge in hits, held on for win.
After a rocky start, Dakota Herman (So., Woodland Park, Colo., Biology) settled in and overcame four walks in five innings of work, while Brian Harrity (So., Castle Rock, Colo., Software Engineering) closed out the victory with two scoreless frames of relief. Harrity earned his first save with two strikeouts against one walk.
GVU’s offense opened up in the nightcap with an 11-4 advantage in hits. The visitors were also helped as the Statesmen committed five errors. The Vikings were sloppy as well with four mistakes, but William Penn failed to make them pay.
The Statesmen trailed 3-0 entering the bottom of the third, but trimmed the deficit to one. Aguila singled in Nick Worcester (Fr., Bloomingdale, Ill., Physical Education) and Gutierrez capped the scoring by a drawing bases-loaded walk to score Villegas.
WPU could not do much after that, while Grand View scored in five separate innings.
