WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - The Saint Michael's College baseball team lost both games of a doubleheader against the University of Minnesota Duluth, 5-4 in eight innings and 13-6, on Tuesday during the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational at the Chain of Lakes Park. Saint Michael's is 1-6, while the Bulldogs are 5-3. Both of Tuesday's games were scheduled as seven-inning affairs.

Seniors George Buteau (Burlington, Vt./Trinity-Pawling School), Michael Dougherty (Albany, N.Y./Christian Brothers Academy/Schenectady County CC) and Nicky Elderton (Shelburne, Vt./Rice Memorial) all went 2-for-4 in game one, with Buteau providing one double and two RBIs and Elderton belting a solo homer. In the third inning, Elderton and senior Don McGuirl (Warwick, R.I./Saint Sebastian's School) both notched their 100th career base hits and are now among just 11 players in program history to reach the milestone. Junior Curt Echo (Shelburne, Vt./Champlain Valley Union) took the loss in relief, allowing one run on three hits while striking out three in the final 2.1 innings. Sophomore Dylan Lavery (Billerica, Mass./Billerica Memorial) yielded two earned runs and matched a career best of nine strikeouts in the opening 5.2 innings for the no-decision.

Junior Kyle Comer (Rhinelander, Wis./Rhinelander) went 2-for-3 with a pair of triples, two runs scored and a sacrifice fly for Minnesota Duluth, with sophomore Matt Vogt (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) doubling and ripping an RBI single during his 2-for-4 performance. Classmate Grant Farley (Andover, Minn./Coon Rapids) also went 2-for-4 and senior Wes Mleviza (Green Bay, Wis./North Park) earned the relief win by throwing three innings of two-hit, shutout relief with four strikeouts.

Elderton put the Purple Knights on the scoreboard first when his second-inning solo home run cleared the right field fence. Saint Michael's tacked on three more runs in the third inning to take a 4-0 lead on an RBI single by McGuirl, which was later followed by a two-run single by Buteau. After allowing four runs through the opening three innings, Minnesota Duluth reeled off four unanswered runs of its own over the following three frames. Vogt's double to open the fourth inning was the Bulldogs' first hit and he later scored on Comer's one-out sacrifice fly.

Minnesota Duluth then came out with two runs thanks to senior Jimmy Heck's (Saint Louis Park, Minn./Benilde-Saint Margaret) RBI squeeze and Vogt's RBI single to right field as the Bulldogs trimmed the margin to 4-3 after five innings. Comer tripled and scored in the top of the sixth inning to bring the score to a 4-4 tie before the Purple Knights stranded runners at second and third with one out in the home half of the inning. Following a scoreless seventh, Comer started the eighth inning with a triple and immediately came home on Farley's RBI single to give Minnesota Duluth a 5-4 lead. Saint Michael's was set down in the bottom of the inning as Mleviza struck out two of the final three batters.

First-year Peter Bocchino (Saugus, Mass./The Governor's Academy) went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs in game two, while Buteau doubled and tripled and scored two runs, and McGuirl added two hits and scored twice. Dougherty walked twice. Senior Will Corkum (Ipswich, Mass./Ipswich) took the loss after allowing six earned runs in 3.2 innings, striking out five.

Heck paced Minnesota Duluth with a 4-for-4 showing with three runs and two RBIs as one of five Bulldogs with a multi-hit effort. Junior Alex Wojciechowski (Coon Rapids, Minn./Coon Rapids) tripled as one of his two hits, while first-year Tommy Hanson (Oakdale, Minn./Tartan) tossed four innings to earn the win.

The teams exchanged RBI singles in the second before Saint Michael's took a 3-1 lead in the top of the third inning off of Buteau's RBI triple and Bocchino's RBI double. Minnesota Duluth responded with three two-out runs on four hits in the home half of the frame to grab a 4-3 advantage. The Bulldogs then pushed across four runs in the fourth on three infield hits and a Wojciechowski RBI triple. Saint Michael's got as close as an 8-5 deficit after RBI singles by Bocchino and Elderton in the fifth, but Minnesota Duluth scored five runs over its next two innings to take a 13-5 lead. Sophomore Kyle Cone's (York, Maine/York) RBI single in the top of the seventh inning accounted for the Purple Knights' final run.

Saint Michael's plays a single nine-inning contest tomorrow at 12 p.m. against Huntington (Ind.) University in Auburndale, Fla.