PASADENA, Calif. – The Carleton College baseball team scored in eight of the nine innings as the Knights opened their Spring Break trip with a 12-3 victory at California Institute of Technology.
 
"What a great way to start the trip to SoCal," said Carleton head coach Aaron Rushing. "Beautiful weather and another complete team win. It's always fun to see the team put together all three aspects of the game with a great effort on the mound, at the plate, and in the field."
 
Carleton (3-1 overall) started the day by loading the bases with none out in the top of the first inning. All three Knights came around to score in the inning, thanks in part to RBI singles by Paul Hinton (Sr./Omaha, Neb./Millard West) and Steve Antrim (So./Lake Bluff, Ill./Lake Forest).
 
Aaron Rice (Fy./Evergreen, Colo./Colorado Academy) doubled to start the second inning and scored on a single by Sam Schur (Sr./Calabasas, Calif./Viewpoint). The Knights added two more runs in the third inning and another in the fourth.
 
Antrim hit his first collegiate home run in the sixth inning.
 
After failing to score despite two runners aboard in the seventh inning, Carleton got back in the scoring column when Jacob Small (Sr./Chappaqua, N.Y./Horace Greeley) tripled to start the eighth frame and came home on Schur's sacrifice fly. Hinton and Rice had base hits to help push across two more runs in the final fame.
 
Hinton and Antrim had three hits apiece to lead the Knights, while Small, Schur, and Rice added multi-hit efforts.
 
Kiefer Lord (So./San Carlos, Calif./Menlo School) got the starting nod and tossed a scoreless frame with two strikeouts, AJ Staff (Jr./Bainbridge Island, Wash./Bainbridge) then took over and hurled a career-best 6.0 innings for his first collegiate win. He struck out four and permitted two runs on three hits. Ananth Iyer (Fy./Redmond, Wash./Overlake) made his season debut and pitched the final 2.0 frames with three strikeouts and a run allowed.
 
Up Next for the Knights
Carleton will play a doubleheader at Caltech on Saturday, with the first pitch of the day thrown at 11:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. CT.