BOLIVAR, Mo. - The Truman baseball team concluded its four-game midweek series with Augustana on Wednesday at Southwest Baptist's Dodson Field. Led by pitcher, Alex Hoffmann, in game one, the Bulldogs defeated the Vikings 2-1, before dropping the fourth and final game of the set, 8-2. With the split, Truman now sits at 6-10 overall while Augustana sits three games below the .500 mark at 6-9.

Game One Recap
The first game went down as a pitcher's duel, but both teams combined to use five different pitchers. For Truman, it was Hoffmann (1-0) who started and earned his first victory of the season. The senior hurler threw six innings of one-run ball and gave up five hits with two strikeouts and one walk. In relief, Peter Young earned his second save of 2017 with a shutout, one-hit seventh and two punchouts.

The Vikings took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first and Bulldogs waited until the bottom of the sixth to score their two runs. Mason King got the party started with a leadoff single and Brendan Trimble walked to put runners on first and second before Chris Iliopoulos moved them both over with a sacrifice bunt right back to the pitcher. After Charlie Kreh walked to load up the bases, everyone moved up on a passed ball during Jason Priest's at-bat and Truman had tied it up, 1-1. Priest then did some damage of his own with a sacrifice fly to right that scored Trimble and the advantage was 2-1 in favor of the good guys.

Game Two Recap
In the nightcap, Augustana again struck first, this time with three runs in the top of the first inning. Truman got two of those runs back, though, with one in the sixth and another in the eighth. In the bottom of the sixth, Priest brought in Iliopoulos with a base knock and in the bottom of the eighth, Dave Gambino singled in Trimble. That would be it for the Bulldogs on offense and the VIkings tacked on five more in the ninth to make it 8-2.

Brad Molski (0-1) got the start for the Purple and White and lasted five frames with three runs surrendered, none of them earned, on three hits with two strikeouts and a walk. In relief, Brandon Williams pitched one shutout inning before Tanner Forck came in for the final three and gave up five runs on six hits with one punchout.

Next up, Truman will play a pair of doubleheaders at Lewis on Saturday and Sunday with first pitch in game one set for 12 p.m. both days.

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