Lakers Season Ends With Tough Battle Against Cougars

JOLIET, Ill. – Roosevelt's season came to an end in a 7-4 loss to St. Xavier on Monday in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament at Duly Health and Care Field in Joliet. The Lakers' run to the final game of the consolation bracket matches the program's longest postseason run in 2018.

The third-seeded Cougars jumped out to an early lead with three straight two-out hits against Noah Mathias. The senior lefty settled in to strike out five in six innings and mostly kept St. Xavier in check until the seventh inning. Battling on short rest after pitching in Thursday's win, Mathias allowed hits to both batters he faced in the seventh inning and took the loss in his final collegiate game.

Despite falling into a 3-0 hole, the seventh-seeded Lakers put their offense to work to climb back into the game. Daniel Gutierrez walked in his first at-bat then hustled around the bases on a grounder from Sean Blanchard, which paid off when the Cougars made an error in the field. In the second inning, Jack Toenjes and Jojo Mack hit back-to-back singles before a wild pitch allowed Toenjes to score.

Roosevelt took the lead in the bottom of the third inning with a pair of runs off the Cougars' starter. Diego Munoz led off the inning with a single then Blanchard found a gap in the infield for a single. Sherman Martin reached on a well-placed bunt after St. Xavier failed to get the lead runner out on the play. Hunter Darst tied the game with a sacrifice fly then Jaylen Heard added a second sac fly to give the Lakers the lead.

St. Xavier tied the game in the fifth with a sacrifice fly set up by a balk called against Mathias that put the runner on third base. Krzysztof Solis came on in the seventh and limited the damage to three runs, the last of which was unearned thanks to a pair of errors in the inning for Roosevelt. The Lakers were charged with four errors in the defeat, although just one of the Cougars' runs against Roosevelt was unearned.

Roosevelt finishes its season with a 26-19 record overall behind the best offense in program history. The Lakers this year set program records for batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and runs score, easily surpassing the previous best seasons in school history. In addition, Gutierrez set the new program record for single-season batting average with his .467 average and Munoz finished with the fourth-highest average at .388.