ST. CHARLES, Mo. – The Lindenwood baseball team (3-3, 0-0 OVC) split their doubleheader against St. Thomas (2-4, 0-0 Summit) at Lou Brock Sports Complex. The Lions took the home opener 4-2 before falling by a score of 8-2 in the rematch.
Game 1 – Lindenwood 4, St. Thomas 2
Strong pitching carried LU to a win in their first home contest of the 2026 season, with three Lindenwood arms combining to allow just a pair of runs on 10 hits with eight total strikeouts.
Aaron Jungers (1-0) picked up the win after tossing three shutout innings in relief, surrendering just three hits with a strikeout.
Easton Rakers was awarded the save after giving up no runs on one hit with a pair of strikeouts in the ninth inning.
Josh Newell put in a solid five-inning start, giving up only two runs on six hits with five strikeouts to set the table for the bullpen.
Offensively,
Kam Edwards and
William Zareh both posted two-hit outings to lead the Lions, with Edwards batting in a run and Zareh scoring a run. The LU order combined for eight hits in the game.
How it Happened
The Tommies struck first, with a pair of two-out singles in the top of the second bringing around Zan Von Schlegell to score after the junior infielder had initially reached on a walk. However, Newell was able to strikeout his second batter of the inning to strand runners on the corners.
Lindenwood immediately responded in the bottom of the second, with
William Zareh singling to center field and moving up 90 feet on a passed ball before scoring on an RBI base hit to left center field by
Filip Sarota.
St. Thomas took the lead right back in the top of the third, as an Owen Bond single with two outs drove in Chris Knowles, who had doubled before moving up to third on a passed ball.
The score remained 2-1 in favor of UST until the bottom of the fifth, when a
Sam Driscoll two-out single and stolen base allowed
Kam Edwards to tie the game with an RBI base hit. The Lions took the lead in their next at-bat after a wild pitch with the bases loaded allowed
Jake Radosevich - who had doubled earlier in the frame - to score the go ahead run.
Following a scoreless seventh, LU added a little insurance with a hustle play by
Mathew Graff, who scored all the way from first on fielding error in left field.
With a two-run lead,
Easton Rakers took the mound and finished the job to pick up his second save of the season.
Game 2 – Lindenwood 2, St. Thomas 8
The Lions fell behind early and were never able to recover in game two, with the Tommies using a pair of big innings to pull away for the win.
The Lindenwood offense mustered eight hits but were only able to produce a couple of runs.
William Zareh was the only Lion to register multiple hits, going 2-4 with a home run.
Ethan Smith was tagged with the loss after allowing four runs on four hits with four strikeouts through the game's first five innings.
How it Happened
UST hung their first crooked number in the top of the first, getting two runners on base with one out before back-to-back doubles drove in three runs.
Ethan Smith settled into the game and held the Tommies to zero runs and zero hits through their next three at-bats before Lindenwood found their first run of the game with a
William Zareh solo home run to deep left field in the bottom of the fourth.
However, UST immediately made up the difference in the top of the fifth with Adam Puder doubling and advancing to third on a sacrifice fly before scoring on a Tanner Recchio single up the middle.
The Tommies would break the game wide open in the seventh, scoring four runs behind a Puder two-run homer and Recchio RBI triple, along with a Joe Roder sacrifice fly to make the score 8-1.
Lindenwood scored one more in the ninth with
Ethan Cantareira tripling to center field to score
Owen Ralph from first base, but the Lions were unable to string together a rally.
Next Up
The Lions and Tommies will conclude their series on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. Game four, which was originally scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, has been canceled due to cold weather.
