BOXSCORE 1 | BOXSCORE 2 GAME 1 BOXSCORE | GAME 2 BOXSCORE

MINNEAPOLIS -- Pounding out 24 hits and scoring 19 runs, the Augsburg College baseball team claimed a doubleheader sweep of visiting Macalester College in Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference action on Saturday afternoon at Parade Stadium.

Augsburg (17-8 overall, 3-3 MIAC) won the first game 5-3 and the second game 14-4 over Macalester (14-11, 4-2 MIAC), last year's MIAC regular-season co-champions.

The Auggies received two strong pitching performances in scoring their seventh doubleheader sweep of the season. In the first game, Eren Cur (JR, Plymouth, Minn./Wayzata HS) improved to 4-0 on the season with his first complete-game effort, striking out two while allowing one walk and seven hits. Cur threw 100 pitches, with 67 strikes, to claim the victory.

In the second game, Ryan Mestnik (FY, Prior Lake, Minn.) improved to 7-0 on the season with his third complete-game shutout of the year, striking out one while walking one and allowing five hits in six innings of work. Of his 86 pitches in the game, 51 were strikes. Mestnik now has a 0.64 earned-run average in a team-high 42.1 innings of work this season.

Augsburg collected nine extra-base hits in the game, including seven doubles -- three by leadoff hitter Brent Kolbow (JR, Forest Lake, Minn.), who scored two runs and drove in a run. Tom Petersen (SR, Hugo, Minn./White Bear Lake HS) had two doubles in going 4-for-6 in the doubleheader with three runs scored and two driven in. Tim Gerding (SR, Robbinsdale, Minn./Cooper HS) went 4-for-5 at the plate with a triple, four RBI and two runs scored. Lou LaChapelle (JR, Eagan, Minn.) went 4-for-7 at the plate with three runs scored and two RBI. Adam Carl (SO, Eagan, Minn.) hit a three-run home run in the second game and had a double in the first game, scoring two runs.

Leading 1-0, the Auggies used a nine-run fourth inning, sending 12 batters to the plate and collecting seven hits, to pull away in the second game en route to its highest single-game scoring output of the season. Petersen had two hits, including an RBI double, in the inning, while Gerding had a two-run triple and Carl hit his three-run homer. Kolbow drove in a run on a double, and Trent Anderson (SR, Eagan, Minn.) and LaChapelle had RBI singles.

Four more runs came across for the Auggies in the sixth inning, with Zach Pavlisick (JR, Phoenix, Ariz./Central HS) hitting a run-scoring double and Gerding hitting a two-run single. The Auggies' first run in the second game came across in the first inning, when Ryan Sward (SO, Eagan, Minn.) plated LaChapelle on a single.

Macalester scored four runs in the top of the seventh inning, on an RBI single by Roberto Capriotti (JR, Pittsburgh, Pa./Upper St. Clair HS) and a three-run double by Ezra Wise (SR, Bronxville, N.Y./The Hackley School).

In the first game, the Auggies rallied from an early deficit with four straight runs. In the second inning, Petersen singled and Carl doubled, and they came across on RBI groundouts by Alec Johnson (SR, Marine on St. Croix, Minn./Forest Lake HS) and Gordon Kappers (FY, Lakeville, Minn./Lakeville North HS). In the third inning, Kolbow doubled and scored on a groundout by Sward, and a Petersen double plated LaChapelle. Augsburg scored another run in the fifth inning, as a LaChapelle single drove home Gerding.

Macalester scored single runs in the second, fourth and fifth innings. Garrett Salzman (SR, Glendale, Calif./St. Francis HS) doubled and came across on a double by Nick Mar (FY, Sacramento, Calif./McClatchy HS) in the second inning, Mitch Glasser (SR, Chicago, Ill./The Latin School tripled and scored on a single by Robert Williams (SR, West Covina, Calif./Northview HS) in the fourth inning, and David Melms (JR, Wauwatosa, Wis./Wisconsin Lutheran HS) scored an unearned run in the fifth inning.

Nick Meerson (SR, Los Angeles, Calif./Harvard-Westlake HS) pitched a complete-game effort in the first game for Macalester, striking out three. Graham Brown (SR, Annandale, Minn.) had three hits for the Scots in the doubleheader, while Wise, Salzman, Glasser and Jimmy Belfont (JR, Olney, Md./Our Lady of Good Counsel HS) had two hits each.

Both teams return to action with home MIAC doubleheaders on Tuesday (4/10) at 2:30 p.m., with Augsburg hosting St. Olaf at Parade Stadium and Macalester hosting Bethel.