OMAHA, Neb. -- Bruin hitters combined for 36 hits and nine home runs on Saturday as the No. 7-ranked Bellevue University baseball team secured a North Star Athletic Association series win over Mayville State with wins by the score of 22-3 in seven innings and 13-6 at John Stella Field at Brown Park.
Winners of 25 of their past 27 games, the Bruins improve to 38-9 overall and 22-1 in NSAA play. BU clinched their third-straight NSAA Regular-Season Championship with their victory in game one.
The Comets fell to 15-20 overall and 12-12 in conference play.
Game One: BU 22, MSU 3 (7 Innings)
McGrane Pledger surrendered a three-run, first inning home run to Jared McCorrister as the Comets jumped out to an early 3-0 lead but it was all Bellevue the rest of the way.
Pledger (7-3) picked up the win, allowing just one more hit over the next four innings while Matt Johnson and Nate Smith each threw a perfect inning of relief.
AJ Artis (2-1) suffered the loss, allowing nine runs on seven hits and three walks in just three innings of work.
Kanta Kobayashi led the offense going 4-for-5 and scoring four runs while hitting a pair of home runs and driving in six runs.
Josh Vaughan and Alec Stufft each tallied three hits including a home run apiece. Vaughan drove in five runs, including a third inning grand slam to give the Bruins the lead.
Leading 5-3, Bellevue sent 16 batters to the plate in a 13-run fourth inning to put the game completely out of reach.
Bellevue became the first team to score 20+ runs against Mayville since SIU Edwardsville in 2008.
For the first time all series, Bellevue scored first, piling up five runs in the third inning featuring a two-run home run from Alex Stufft.
The teams traded runs in the fourth before Andrew Ishii hit his first of two home runs – a two-run shot – in the fifth and Carson Lundmark answered with a three-run shot.
A Conner Barnett two-run shot and a two-run single from Stufft in the sixth pushed the BU lead to 12-4.
Mayville got a pair of runs back in the sixth before Ishii capped the scoring with a solo shot in the seventh.
Ishii led Bellevue with a 3-for-4 game as seven Bruins tallied multi-hit efforts in the finale.
Blake Crippen (9-2) worked 4.1 innings to earn the win before turning it over to the bullpen.
Gunner Thompson (0-1) suffered the loss for MSU. The Comets trotted three relievers out of the 'pen but none experienced much success in retiring BU hitters.
Bellevue plays their regular-season home finale at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Apr. 27 when they host Peru State College from John Stella Field at Brown Park.
