FORT PIERCE, Fla. – On the second day of its two-week stay in Florida, the Kenyon College baseball team split a pair of nine-inning games at the Lawnwood Baseball Complex. Monday morning, the Lords dropped a 6-1 decision to the Susquehanna University Crusaders. In the afternoon, they bounced back by beating the Wilkes University Colonels, 8-3.

In the first game of the day, Kenyon ran into Casey Hood, Susquehanna's ace who was coming off an All-Region season that included a 9-1 record and a 2.76 earned run average. Hood proved not much has changed since that time. He held the Lords to just one unearned run on two hits. He didn't walk a batter and he struck out nine.

Kenyon's lone run came in the top of the seventh inning. With one out, Jake Dunn reached base via an error. John Nahra did the same and pushed Dunn over to third base. Kyle Hardacker then smacked a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Dunn.  Earlier in the game, Hardacker accounted for one of the Lords' two hits. Pinch hitter Andrew Petersdorf got the other Kenyon hit in the ninth inning.

Senior Tim Krahn was the Lords' starting pitcher. He went five innings and gave up five runs on six hits and three walks. Desmond Dahlberg then tossed two innings of relief, yielding one run before Tyler Roldan struck out the side in the bottom of the eighth.

After being bottled up against Susquehanna, the Lords offense uncorked 15 hits in Monday's second game against Wilkes. Second baseman Phillip Nam, hitting in the No. 7 hole, led the charge by going 4-for-5 at the plate with three runs scored. Roldan, taking over the designated hitter role, went 3-for-5 with two runs scored and third baseman Matt von Roemer moved up to the No. 2 spot in the order to go 3-for-5 with three RBI and one run scored.

With the game tied 1-1 heading into the bottom of fourth, the Lords started to break things open. Four straight singles from the bottom of the order put two more Kenyon runs on the board. In the sixth inning, the Lords used a Wilkes error and a double from von Roemer to score two more times.

In the seventh inning, von Roemer struck again. This time a two-run single put the game away for the Lords, who improved to 3-1.

Paul Henshaw capitalized on the run support and captured his first pithing win of the season after hurling a little more than six innings and allowing just three earned runs on a walk and seven hits.

Tuesday is a scheduled practice day for Kenyon. The Lords' next game will be against Misericordia University on Wednesday morning.