AUBURNDALE, Ind. - The Bluffton University baseball team split a pair of games on its final day in Florida. The Beavers defeated Saint Vincent 7-5 before RIT won game two by a 12-3 count on Friday, March 7, 2025. Bluffton stands 2-6 as it prepares to kick off action in Ohio next week.
Freshman Trey Pipenger (Richmond, Ind.) put the Beavers up 1-0 with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the second inning. He was also in the middle of a three-run fourth frame when his single to right field plated Drew Snipes (Pickerington/North) and Ayden Spriggs (North Lewisburg/Triad) after Evan Houseman (Springfield/Kenton Ridge) crossed the dish following a Snipes sacrifice bunt.
Tyler Forest (Harrison/LaSalle) scurried home courtesy of a St. Vincent error in the sixth, making it 5-0. A leadoff triple and a wild pitch helped the Bears get on the scoreboard with their first run in the top of the seventh.
The Beaver bullpen struggled to find the strike zone in the eighth inning, hitting three batters, walking three more and throwing a wild pitch as St. Vincent scored four times without the benefit of a hit or an error.
With the game knotted 5-5, graduate student Jack Towell (Batavia/West Clermont) game through with a two-run single that picked up Forest and Torin Long (Defiance) for a 7-5 lead. Deegan Yutzy (Mogodore/Field) worked around a one-out walk in the ninth, earning his first collegiate victory after tossing 1.1 no-hit frames with four strikeouts and one walk.
Sophomore Riley Reyna (Wellington) had his second lock-down performance in as many starts this season. He allowed just one run on four hits with a strikeout and five walks across seven frames but did not factor in the decision thanks to St. Vincent knotting it in the eighth inning.
Forest went 3-of-4 with two runs scored. Pipenger drove in three runs, while Snipes scored twice. Towell, who drove in a pair of runs, and Ethan Moore (Bellefontaine) both smacked two hits in game one.
Rochester Institute of Technology went up 2-0 in the bottom of the first. A Towell RBI single plated Pipenger two innings later, but the home team on the scoreboard responded with two more for a 4-1 lead.
Forest drove in Houseman with a sacrifice fly in the sixth and Colton Rinehart (Richmond, Ind./Centerville) crossed the dish in the seventh but eight tallies for RIT in frames five through seven made it 12-3.
Moore went 3-of-5 to lead the Bluffton offense.
Senior Nathan Young (Copley) fell to 0-2 after allowing six runs on eight hits in five innings on the bump. He struck out two and walked three batters.
Bluffton will head north after capping off its eight-game Florida slate. The Beavers will be right back in action on Tuesday, March 11, when they welcome Albion College for a 4:15 start to the home opener.
-BEAVERS-
