The Charger baseball team rallied late and outlasted Northwestern (Iowa) 5-3 in 14 innings Tuesday afternoon at Doane Ballfield Complex in Crete, Nebraska.
Briar Cliff improved to 26-21 on the season, while Northwestern dropped to 28-20.
The Chargers secured the win in the bottom of the 14th inning when Grant Devecsery delivered a two-run home run to left-center, scoring Cade Marquardt and ending the game.
Northwestern struck first in the second inning on a solo home run from Brody Ayers. Briar Cliff answered in the fourth, tying the game on a double-play ball that brought home Damon Schmid. The Raiders regained the lead in the fifth on an RBI single by Devin Dirkx, but the Chargers evened the score again in the bottom half with an RBI single from Marquardt.
The teams traded runs again in the seventh inning. Northwestern took a 3-2 lead on a sacrifice fly from Ranier Castillo before Briar Cliff responded with an RBI groundout by Schmid to tie the game at 3-3.
From there, both pitching staffs settled in. The game remained deadlocked through six extra innings as each team stranded multiple runners.
Devecsery led the Chargers offensively, going 2-for-6 with a double, a home run and two RBIs. Marquardt added two hits and an RBI, while Nico Sall contributed two hits.
On the mound, Zach LaMont earned the win in relief, tossing 5.2 scoreless innings while allowing just two hits and striking out four.
Ayers took the loss for Northwestern after pitching 5.1 innings in relief.
The Cliff will now take on the eighth seeded Hastings Broncos in Crete, Nebraska tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.
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