The Tigers picked up their first wins of the season as the team defeated Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Friday and Saturday. DePauw lost the nightcap on Saturday to Concordia Chicago, 7-6, to push its season record to 2-3.
In Friday night's game against the Fighting Engineers, the DePauw Tigers trailed multiple times during the game as they fell behind as the innings progressed, 2-0, 5-1, 6-4. However, trailing 6-4 in the eighth inning, the Tigers were able to rally scoring three runs in the inning to take a 7-6 lead to win the game.
Junior Brendon Pashia said after playing Rose Hulman for the past three years the players knew what to expect to help lead them to a victory.
"We know how to play Rose Hulman and frankly we know we are more talented than them," Pashia said. "We were confident that we could come back from a deficit. We just strung hits together to get a lead unlike last weekend."
Pashia led the Tigers on Friday, tallying four hits on five plate appearances. Pashia also started the rally in the eighth inning with a single off Rose Hulman reliever Kevin Farley. Freshman Connor Einertson also chipped in for DePauw as he recorded three RBI's to along with three hits.
"I took a different approach than the first weekend and was more aggressive," Pashia said. "I just looked for fastballs and squared them all up. They were all singles but it doesn't matter, I'll take hits."
The Tigers faced the Fighting Engineers again on Saturday morning and were able to pick up their second straight win against the team. Sophomore Jack Peck was the starter and pitched one of his best collegiate games as he threw seven innings allowing four hits and no runs.
"I was able to throw strikes early in counts and get a lot of ground balls," Peck said. "The defense also did a great job and had my back the entire game."
The Tigers however weren't able to complete the weekend sweep as they dropped the final game to Concordia Chicago. In a closely fought game, DePauw tied the game at 6-6 in the top of the sixth thanks to some timely hits and errors by Concordia. However, the Cougars quickly jumped back on top in the bottom of the inning thanks to a Shawn Miller RBI.
Despite the loss to Concordia, the Tigers felt this weekend's games were an improvement from previous games this season.
"I feel like the team improved a lot since last week because the pitching staff did a good job of throwing strikes and limiting the number of walks we gave up," Peck said. "Our hitters also did a great job of finding ways to get on base and were hitting better with runners in scoring position."