CRESTWOOD, Ill. --- After a 40 game regular season, the TIU baseball team traveled to Ozinga Field on a cold and misty Tuesday afternoon as they battled the Roosevelt Lakers in the CCAC Tournament Play-In Game. With the winner of this one-game playoff, the Trojans looked to carry their momentum from their previous series over with a chance to advance to the eight team finals site for the first time since 2011.

Dominik Olech would get the start for Trinity in the win or go home game, seeking his third win of the season. Both Olech and Lakers starter Tom Jager made it difficult to put the ball in play early with no hits for either team through four innings, until Sam Willis made contact and notched a single to left field.

Olech would produce six solid innings of no-hit baseball before the Lakers took a 1-0 lead on a Tyler Suchy run scored on a double play. TIU responded in the top of the eighth as Zorion Pullen reached base on a single, then stole second. Luis Henriquez and Julius Torres followed Pullen's hit up with back-to-back walks, setting the table for Blake Lazaris' go-ahead two run single to center to put the Trojans up 2-1.

With Kurtis Sippy on the mound for Trinity in relief, Roosevelt rallied and tied the game on a Suchy single to left to send the game to extra innings. TIU would be unable to scratch another run across home plate as Matt Donahue notched the walk-off RBI single to end the Trojan's season with a 3-2 loss in ten innings.

ADDITIONAL GAME NOTES

• After Tuesday's loss, the Trojans fall to 13-16 all-time against Roosevelt.

• Kurtis Sippy's record falls to 1-9 on the season with the loss.

• Tuesday's game was just the second time this season Trinity played extra innings in a scheduled nine inning game. The only other occasion came on March 30 in a 5-4 win at Roosevelt in ten innings.

• Zorion Pullen recorded two of TIU's seven hits on the day, as well as one of their two runs.

• Pullen's double in the sixth inning was his first of his career, and second extra base hit of the season.

• Pullen's stolen base in the eighth inning was his 13th of the 2021 campaign.

The Trojans end the 2021 season with a final record of 14-28 record. 

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Trinity International University is a comprehensive, national university affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America and located in Bannockburn, Illinois, 25 miles north of Chicago. TIU educates men and women to engage in God's redemptive work in the world by cultivating academic excellence, Christian faithfulness and lifelong learning.