BOURBONNAIS, Ill. – The Olivet Nazarene University baseball team extended their NAIA-leading winning streak to 20 games after defeating the Eagles of Judson University 13-6 Tuesday evening. Jack Springer had a career day at the plate hitting three for four with a walk, and three RBIs. The freshman from Mission Viejo, Calif. hit his first home run as a Tiger.

Olivet Nazarene built a lead early scoring five unanswered runs in the first two innings. After the Eagles ended the run in the second inning scoring their first run of the contest, the Tigers streaked for another five unanswered runs through the fifth inning to take a demanding 10-1 lead. ONU scored three more before the bottom of the ninth inning to grow the score to 13-2. Judson battled back to cut the lead to single digits before Michael Freitas popped up and then struck out the final two JU batters to end the game.

Seven different Tigers recorded RBIs on the day. Jacob Bulthuis, Alex Ortiz, Donovan Yelle, and Springer all registered multiple. Tyler Wheeler homered in the top of the fourth inning for his conference-leading 10^th home run of the year. Yelle and Ortiz accounted for their eighth and sixth doubles of the year respectively.

Aren Gustafson was credited with his fifth win of the season to improve to 5-4. The southpaw hurler struck out eight batters in five innings of work. He now leads the conference with a total of 73 strikeouts for the campaign. Johnathan Simpson entered the ballgame in relief tying a season-high five strikeouts pitching three innings.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The Tigers will begin a three-game series with the Lynx of Lincoln College on Friday. ONU will travel to Lincoln for the first game at 3 p.m. followed by hosting the Lynx at Watson Field on Saturday with games slated for 12 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. CST. Saturday will also feature as Senior Day for the baseball program.

--ONU—

*Contact: Patrick Kaindl, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, pkaindl@olivet.edu