Bellevue downs St. Thomas to open series

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Blake Crippen turned in a strong outing and was backed by an offensive effort which saw eight Bruins record a hit as the #24 Bellevue University baseball team defeated #17 St. Thomas University 6-5 on Saturday afternoon to kick off a three-game series at TigerTown.

Bellevue improves to 9-3 overall, and even their record at 3-3 against Top 25 foes, while St. Thomas dips to 13-4 on the season.

Blake Crippen (3-1), making his second-straight start, turned in another strong performance on the hill. He struck out five while allowing five runs (four earned) over 6.2 innings of work.

McGrane Pledger came out of the bullpen to toss 2.1 innings of one-hit relief to earn his second save.

Offensively, Bellevue pounded out 13 hits and received multi-hit performances from four players. Tradd Richardson went 3-for-5 and drove in a run while Kanta Kobayashi and Alec Ackerman were each 2-for-5 with the latter belting his team-leading fifth home run of the season.

Alex Stufft (2-4) was the fourth Bruin with a multi-hit day and Zach Diehl recorded a big two-run triple.

The Bruins chased Bobcat starter Crosby Bringhurst with one out in the fifth after tagging the right-hander for six runs on 10 hits.

Jack Khawly doubled and drove in three runs for St. Thomas. The Bobcats got the remaining production from the bat of Andrew Fernandez who recorded a pair of hits and drove in two runs.

BU and St. Thomas play game two of their three-game series tomorrow at 1 p.m. EST (noon CST).