THE RUNDOWN
The DBU Baseball team extended their season-opening winning streak to five on Friday night, defeating Austin Peay, 9-4, at Horner Ballpark. Up, 5-4, going to the bottom of the eighth inning, DBU (5-0) scored four insurance runs to put the game out of reach.
 
Austin Peay (2-3) stole a run in the first inning to grab the early lead. With two outs, Ambren Voitik hit an infield single to Patriot second baseman Miguel Santos. In the next at-bat, Jace Grady misjudged a flyball in right field that allowed Lyle Miller-Green to reach base, scoring Voitik on the play.
 
DBU played small ball in the bottom half of the frame to score four runs. Tom Poole led off the inning with a walk and subsequently stole second base. An Ethan Mann single put runners on the corners, and Jace Grady followed with an RBI bloop single of his own. Moments later, with the bases loaded, Nathan Humphreys stroked a two-run double to finish the scoring for the inning.
 
In the third, Braxton Bragg surrendered his first home run of the year to outfielder Garrett Martin, trimming the Patriot lead to 4-2.
 
Humphreys started off the DBU fourth inning with another double to set up the Patriots for another run. He trotted home on a sacrifice fly ball to right field off the bat of Mann.
 
The Governors offense scored a pair of timely runs in the sixth inning. Martin earned his second hit of the day when he tripled to lead off the inning. He scored on the next plate appearance, a groundout by Voitik to the shortstop, Luke Heefner. Miller-Green then crushed a 1-0 pitch over the left-center field fence to make the difference only one run.
 
After throwing a career-high 6.0 innings, Bragg was replaced by Brady Rose in the seventh. Rose  would strike out the side in order in the seventh.
 
Leading by a run headed to the home-half of the eighth, DBU tacked on four important insurance runs, highlighted by a couple of two-run singles off the bats of Grady and Nate Rombach. 

Kyle Amdendt, who fanned all three batters that he faced in the eighth, notched his first career save when he struck out the side in order in the ninth.
 
THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
- DBU struck out all nine of the Governors in the lineup at least once.
- Nathan Humphreys went 3-for-3 with 3 doubles on Friday night.
- Austin Peay's two through four batters were responsible for four of the Governors' five hits.
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
1 - Patriot pitching gave up only one free base, their fewest of the season. 
6 - DBU had a season-high 6 stolen bases.
9 - Brady Rose and Kyle Amendt struck out all nine batters they faced in relief.
 
DAN HEEFNER ON HOW THE PATRIOTS HANDLED A CLOSE GAME
"I thought this was a great game for us. I loved how competitive it was. We needed to feel some pressure. We felt that tonight and to see us respond the way that we did in the late innings was encouraging to see."
 
UP NEXT
Game two of the series between DBU and Austin Peay is scheduled for Saturday at 2:00 pm at Horner Ballpark.
  Read Full Article