After riding an eight game winning streak the week before, College of DuPage’s baseball team has now dropped six games in a row. In game one of their two game set against Triton College, the team fell flat as they seemed overmatched throughout most of the game.

Triton’s starting pitcher, Will Kincanon, lead the way and dominated a COD team that only was able to scratch four hits together the whole game. Right out the gate, Kincanon started off by throwing eight straight fastballs. He was ineffective with his off-speed stuff as he was unable to finish any of his pitches until the later innings. Even with Kincanon being a one-dimensional pitcher through the first half of his start, COD seemed overmatched.

COD sent ace Wyatt Trautwein to the mound to face the Trojans. Trautwein worked fast and tried to quick pitch Triton’s lineup didn’t work out like it has in his past starts. The Trojan’s got to Trautwein in the bottom of the third inning when he walked the first batter to start the inning. The Trojan’s were setting up to bunt when the batter pulled back and hit a base hit to right field which caught the defense off guard. After another base hit and wide pitch, Triton third basemen, Trayvon Johnson, ripped a single into centerfield to put the Trojan’s up 3-0.

COD’s bats came alive in the top of the fourth though when they tied the game after shortstop Brian Taheri ripped a double down the right field line that knotted the game up at 3-3 with two outs. This was set up by a perfectly placed bunt by COD’s Mike Hansen.

Just when it looked like the momentum was going in the Chaparrals direction, everything went wrong. In the bottom half of the fifth inning, Trautwein gave up a lead off double which proved to be costly for him as he then surrendered a base hit two batters later that knocked in the runner on second to make the score 5-3.

One aspect of COD’s game that has failed them in the past has been their defense which came up empty for Trautwein when he induced a fly ball to right field. The ball was tailing towards the foul pole when the COD’s right fielder tripped and the ball fell in for a double. Head Coach Kevin Tyrrell wasn’t so pleased with his defense. “It was a huge misplay. It looked like we weren’t ready for the ball to be hit to us,” said Tyrrell. “It is unfortunate and it is my fault. I wrote up the lineup and I put players in positions and I got to put better players in those positions so we can succeed as a team.”

A sac-fly to right field was the last run scored that inning and it left them trailing 7-3 in the fifth inning.

Trautwein’s day ended with five innings pitched, five strike outs, three walks and gave up nine hits. All of the batters Trautwein walked scored.

The rest of the game was uneventful as both teams seemed to lose their energy. The final score was 8-3 with COD finishing the game with only four hits while striking out seven times.

This was their fifth loss in a row and Tyrrell was upset with his team’s performance on the diamond. “We need someone to step up and be a man out here,” said Tyrrell. “We are letting things affect us that shouldn’t affect us and we are not responding well to adversity.”