WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — The Lawrence University baseball team rallied late in the second game and picked up a nonconference split with Elmhurst College on Saturday.
Lawrence (3-5) took the nightcap 7-4, and the Bluejays (4-4) won the opener 24-11.
Zach Rabideau went 2-for-3 and Joel Birch was 2-for-4 to pace the Vikings’ attack. Philip Clark pitched 1.1 innings of scoreless relief to get the win, and Kelton Jenkins tossed a scoreless ninth for the save.
The Vikings trailed 4-3 heading into the eighth, but Lawrence scored twice in the eighth and two more times in the ninth to pick up the win.
Walks to Luke Zablocki and Birch started the go-ahead rally in the eighth. Zablocki later scored on a fielder’s choice to tie it at 4-4, and Birch scored on a booted ground ball to put the Vikings up 5-4.
Brandon Klar and Matthew Holliday started the ninth with singles, and Zablocki and Birch both came through with sacrifice flies to give Lawrence a pair of insurance runs.
Jenkins gave up a single and walk in the ninth but worked out of the jam to get the save.
In the opener, Elmhurst broke the game open in the middle innings and kept on scoring.
Freshman Jake Mills led Lawrence’s attack by going 2-for-5 with his first collegiate homer and four runs batted in. Holliday went 2-for-4 with a double and drove in a pair. Klar and Anthony Ortiz also had two hits, and Travis Weber drove in a pair of run.
Lawrence led 8-2 after a six-run second inning, highlighted by Mills’ two-run homer. Elmhurst came back with five runs in the fourth to trim the margin to 8-7, and the Bluejays then scored seven times in the fifth to go up 14-8.
Elmhurst added four runs in the seventh and six more in the eighth to seal the win.