Gavin Jacobsen pitched well but wound up with a no-decision for Bethany Lutheran College as the Vikings were 10-9 winners over Minnesota-Morris in the first round of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference baseball tournament Thursday at ISG Field in Mankato.
The Jackson County Central graduate, a sophomore with the Vikings, started out by retiring the Cougars on three pop ups in the first inning.
In the second inning, Morris recorded a hit and had a batter reach by being hit by a pitch but Jacobson struck out three in the inning.
The southpaw sandwiched a base hit with a pair of strikeouts in the third inning to get two outs before Bethany threw out a runner trying to steal.
Jacobsen struck out the side in both the fourth and fifth innings as Bethany held a 3-0 lead. The Vikings scored four in the bottom of the fifth for a 7-0 lead.
Morris would chase Jacobsen in the sixth as the Cougars used three hits and a pair of walks and cut the deficit to 7-4.
UMM scored five runs in the eighth for a 9-7 lead before Bethany scored three in the bottom of the inning to take a 10-9 lead and then stranded two runners in the ninth to preserve the win.
Jacobsen would pitch 5.1 innings, allowing four runs on six hits, walking two and neared a career high in strikeouts with 12. He fanned 14 in a game vs. Northland on April 23.
For the season, Jacobsen has a 1-2 record with an earned run average of 4.11. In 46 innings he has allowed 30 runs (21 earned) on 38 hits, walked 21, hit five batters and struck out 80.
Heron Lake-Okabena graduate Eli Fest had three hits Thursday for Bethany Lutheran.
The UMAC tournament is scheduled to continue Friday with three games but rain delayed the start of play.
Wisconsin-Superior and Minnesota-Morris are scheduled to play an elimination game with Bethany playing Crown meeting in the winner’s bracket at 7 p.m. A third game was scheduled to also be played with the winner of the first game playing the loser of the second game. It’s yet to be determined if that will be scheduled for Friday night or get moved to Saturday.