CLAREMONT, Calif. – The Carleton College baseball team dropped the last two games of its spring break trip to the Golden State. The Knights lost 19-4 to University of Puget Sound (Wash.) and 12-11 to weekend host Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
 
Puget Sound 19, Carleton 4
The Loggers (12-12 overall) led 3-2 until they scored six times in the third inning, four more runs in the fourth, and five tallies in the sixth to put the game out of reach. Puget Sound hit three home runs in the contest, including a pair round-trippers by Dylan Joyce, who went 4-for-5 with five runs scored and four RBI. He now has nine homers on the year, tied for fourth in NCAA Division III.
 
After Puget Sound plated three runs in the top of the first inning, the Knights (3-9 overall) immediately answered back with two tallies in the bottom of the frame. Jacob Small (Sr./Chappaqua, N.Y./Horace Greeley) tripled and scored on a single by Paul Hinton (Sr./Omaha, Neb./Millard West). James Sassi (Sr./Stamford, Conn./Brunswick School) walked and came home later in the inning on a groundball for the other run.
 
Sassi doubled to start the third inning and advanced home on Brayden Stark's (So./Los Angeles, Calif./The Buckley School) single. The other Carleton run came in the fifth inning after Hinton led off with a single, advanced on a pair of wild pitches, and scored on a Stark grounder.
 
Hinton and Small led the offense by collecting three and two hits, respectively.
 
Carleton reliever Mark Fernandez (Fy./New York, N.Y./Horace Mann) registered five strikeouts over his 2.0 innings of mound work.
 
C-M-S 12, Carleton 11
The Knights led at different times 6-2, 10-4, and 11-10 but could not hold on as the Stags (12-9 overall) put together two late-inning rallies.
 
Jack Hommeyer (Fy./Bronxville, N.Y./Suffield Academy) went 2-for-3 with four RBI to lead Carleton. He smacked a three-run home run during the Knights' six-run fifth inning and added a double and two walks on the day. Hinton contributed three more hits in game two, and Aaron Rice (Fy./Evergreen, Colo./Colorado Academy) went 2-for-4 with two runs scored.
 
Starting pitcher Kiefer Lord (So./San Carlos, Calif./Menlo School) surrendered two runs in the first inning, but he settled in over the next few inning and finished the day with nine strikeouts over 6.0-plus innings. His stats took a hit, however, after the first five Stags to come to the plate in the seventh inning collected base hits in what eventually became a six-run frame.
 
With the game knotted 10-10, Sam Zacks (Fy./Glencoe, Ill./New Trier) reached on an error to start the top of the eighth inning, and singles by Sam Schur (Sr./Calabasas, Calif./Viewpoint) and Hinton loaded the bases. Zacks eventually scored on a wild pitch to give Carleton an 11-10 lead.
 
Back-to-back doubles for C-M-S to begin the bottom of the frame tied the game back up at 11-11, and a two-out, pinch-hit single broke the deadlock. The Knights went down in order in the ninth.
 
Up Next for the Knights
Carleton returns to Minnesota and is slated for a 9-inning, non-conference game at Bethany Lutheran on Wednesday, March 30.