Medsker fans 11 as Trailblazers upset No. 12 Kellogg C.C.

VINCENNES, Ind. – Vincennes University sophomore starting pitcher Logan Medsker (Marshall, Ill.) wasted little time breaking his new career-high in strikeouts from last weekend, coming out Friday night against the No. 12-ranked Kellogg Community College Bruins and setting a new career-high with 11 strikeouts on the game.

Medsker's excellent pitching performance helped guide the Trailblazers to a 2-1 upset victory over the Bruins to kick off another busy weekend of Junior College baseball at Jerry Blemker Field.

The game began as another pitcher's duel for the Trailblazers, with both offenses held scoreless through the first three innings.

Kellogg would break the scoreless tie in the fourth after their leadoff hitter reached on an error and came in to score on a sacrifice fly.

VU answered back strong in the bottom half of the inning with sophomore Kade Hinton (Fort Wayne, Ind.) leading off the inning with a single, followed by a double by redshirt freshman Holden Clifton (Louisville, Ill.).

Hinton came in to tie the game on a wild pitch before sophomore Brandon Juarez (Evansville, Ind.) put down an excellent sacrifice bunt to drive in Clifton on the squeeze play and give the Blazers a 2-1 lead.

The Vincennes pitching staff took it from there with Medsker allowing one base runner in the fifth, before turning the game over to sophomore Christian Pinson (Elizabethtown, Ky.) in the sixth and sophomore Jace Parnin (Fort Wayne, Ind.) coming in from shortstop to close out the seventh by striking out all three batters he faced.

Parnin closed the door in the seventh to pick up the save and finish off the upset victory for the Trailblazers 2-1 over No. 12 Kellogg C.C.

Logan Medsker pitched an outstanding game Friday night, throwing five innings, allowing one hit, one run, zero earned runs and setting a new career-high with 11 strikeouts, including throwing an immaculate inning in the third by striking out all three Bruin batters on nine pitches.

Christian Pinson pitched an inning plus, allowing no runs on one hit and striking out two.

Jace Parnin entered in the seventh with the potential tying run on first and was able to slam the door shut with three strikeouts to end the game.

The VU pitchers combined to strikeout 16 batters Friday night, while only allowing two walks and two hits in the seven inning game.

"First of all, it started on the mound tonight," VU Head Baseball Coach Chris Barney said. "Logan Medsker gave us five quality innings and gave up no earned runs. Then he turned it over to the bullpen to Christian Pinson who did it last year for us and then Jace Parnin coming in for his first save of the year."

"Then the other part of it is that we executed tonight both offensively and defensively," Barney added. "We executed two hit and runs. Carter Whitehead made a great catch in left field early in the game. Then executed a squeeze play with Juarez with Clifton at third. You put all of that together, running up against their top arm who is a Purdue commit, is really good. That pitcher is as good as we've seen all year."

"Hopefully we can feed off of this and build off of this," Barney said. "This is a quality win for our program and we're excited about it with opportunities to hopefully get two more tomorrow."

The Trailblazers will look to keep this momentum going tomorrow when VU returns to Jerry Blemker Field Saturday, March 2 to take on Lincoln Trail College at 3:30 p.m. eastern followed immediately by facing Glen Oaks Community College from Centreville, Mich. at 6 p.m. eastern.

The weekend will close on Sunday, March 3 with a rematch between the Blazers and Bruins with first pitch set for 11 a.m. eastern.

"The reason we're playing back-to-back tomorrow is simply so we can get used to it," Barney said. "We want to get used to playing back-to-back as we start getting into conference play next week. Lincoln Trail is a Division I opponent, who has not had a great year so far, but has played about as good a schedule as anybody in the country. Then Glen Oaks, new coach, still getting his feet wet and hopefully we can build off of what we were able to accomplish tonight and do a good job with it."

BOX SCORE

Kellogg – 000   100   0 – 1

VU (4-8) – 000   200   x – 2

VINCENNES HITTING

2B – Clifton. RBI – Juarez. HBP – Douglas, Parnin. Sac Bunt – Juarez.