WAUKESHA, Wis. - Thomas Ward, a junior first baseman from Waukesha, Wis., went 4-for-5 with a home run and three RBIs but the Carroll University baseball team lost to Milwaukee School of Engineering 8-6 in a nonconference game at Frame Park on Wednesday afternoon.
It was the first home-field loss of the early season for Carroll, which entered the contest riding the momentum of a 5-4 victory over Grinnell College in its final game of a challenging Florida trip but dropped to 4-7 overall.
The Pioneers scored the first run of the showdown in the bottom of the first inning as Joey Appino delivered a hard-hit RBI double to left-center field.
MSOE, 6-2 overall, answered with two runs in the top of the second to claim a 2-1 lead.
The lead was short lived as Carroll responded with five runs on four hits in its half of the fourth, powered on an RBI single to left field from Cole Haugh, a sacrifice fly out to right field by Justin Baker and towering one-out three-run homer by Ward (his team-leading third of the season).
MSOE responded with single runs in the seventh and eighth, claiming a lead for good with four runs in the decisive ninth.
The Raiders scored the winning runs as the result of an error.
Casey Mir contributed two hits for Carroll, which pounded out 13 hits in the contest but stranded 11 baserunners.
The Pioneers utilized four pitchers including starter Nolan Fehrman, Erik Jaschinski, Andy Buskohl and Connor Nolen.
Fehrman, a 6-foot-3 right-hander from Slinger, Wis., was a steady force through six complete innings, allowing two earned runs on four hits with three strikeouts and three walks in throwing 103 pitches.
Nolen took the loss to drop to 1-1 overall, yielding two earned runs on three hits in working the ninth for the Pioneers.