MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – The Northland College Baseball team ended the series against North Central University, falling 11-5 in Upper Midwest Athletic Conference play Tuesday morning in Minneapolis, Minn.
 
In the first, Matt Simpson came to the plate with two outs and reached base with a single to right center. Zach Ross drew a walk to put two runners on in the opening frame. Peyton Solberg got the Jacks on the board with a single to left field, scoring Simpson. Ross ended the scoring, reaching home on an error for Norhtland to take a 2-0 lead.
 
The Rams loaded the bases with only one out in the first. Kazdion Mount on the mound, punched out the next two batters to leave the bases loaded. NCU scored its first run an inning later with a leadoff home run from Lorenzo Baren. Mount retired the next three batters to enter the third with the lead.
 
North Central knotted the game up in the third. After a leadoff single, followed by a double the Rams had two in scoring position with no outs. The first out was a lineout to Ross the first baseman. The next batter advanced the runs with a groundball to shortstop to tie up the game. The final out was recorded by a lineout to Tyler Murphy the shortstop to get out of the inning still tied.
 
In the fourth inning, Northland retook the lead. Ross and Solberg started the inning with a pair of singles. Dezmon LeTexier scored the go-ahead run with a single down the left-field line. Mount tossed a one-two-three inning to follow with two Ks.
 
The Rams took the lead with a four-run fifth inning, all runs were unearned. The Jacks got out of the inning first by picking off the runner trying to advance to third, followed by Mount's fifth strikeout of the game. Vinny Troccoli entered the game in the sixth and pitched a clean inning to keep the deficit at three.
 
Northland started to chip away at the lead in the seventh. Murphy drew a two-out walk, Hunter Wicklund singled and Simpson scored Murphy on a single to center field to make the score 6-4. In the bottom half NCU ballooned its lead to six and added one more in the eighth.
 
Caden Willis hit his first home run of the season in the ninth to make the final score 5-11.
 
The Jacks tallied 10 hits in the loss with Murphy, Simpson, and Solberg all having a multiple-hit game. Murphy and Willis had extra-base hits in the contest with a double and home run respectively. Ross scored two of the team's five runs.
 
In his start, Mount went five innings with five strikeouts, with one walk, and gave up two earned runs. The junior did not give up a two-out hit in his five innings of work. Troccoli pitched two innings and added two strikeouts to make his season total 20. Ethan Boyce pitched the final inning, only giving up one hit. Michael Escalante pitched a complete game for NCU to earn the win.
 
The Jacks start their next series tomorrow (Wednesday) with a nonconference doubleheader against the University of Wisconsin-Stout starting at noon.
 
Northland College is an NCAA Division III institution located in Ashland, WI. The LumberJacks and LumberJills sponsor 14 varsity sports and compete in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference, Midwest Lacrosse Conference, and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.