WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – The St. Olaf College baseball team began its Florida trip with a 3-2 walk-off victory over No. 11/13-ranked Rowan University in 10 innings for its first top-15 win in seven years on Thursday at Chain O'Lakes Park.

Facing an offense that entered the day ranked No. 8 in NCAA Division III in runs per game (10.8) and No. 11 in batting average (.355), four St. Olaf (6-3) pitchers held Rowan (11-2) to six hits before junior Breckin Hadley broke a 2-2 tie with a walk-off infield hit with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 10th. The victory was the first for the Oles over a top-15 team since a 6-3 win over third-ranked UW-Whitewater on March 26, 2018.

The Profs were ranked No. 11 in the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) poll and No. 13 in the D3baseball.com/National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) poll this week. Rowan had won its last 10 games and had not scored fewer than seven runs in a game this season.

Sophomore Kieran Haaland earned his first win of the season by limiting Rowan to one run on four hits with one walk and two strikeouts in 3.2 innings of relief, including getting a double play to get the Oles out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the top of the seventh. Senior Matthew Oberlander allowed just one hit over the first 3.0 innings and sophomore Nick Levasseur did not surrender a hit over his 2.1 innings of relief.

Hadley, senior Matthew Kulesa, and senior Jack Alley all recorded multi-hit games and combined for seven of St. Olaf's nine hits in the win. Hadley had three hits, including the walk-off single, while Kulesa and Alley had two apiece.

Rowan got on the board first in the top of the fourth on a two-out, run-scoring single to capitalize on a leadoff walk. St. Olaf responded in the next half inning, however, after starting the frame with back-to-back singles from Kulesa and Hadley. With runners on the corners and nobody out, junior Jack Pettit reached on a fielder's choice to drive in a run and tie the game.

Levasseur got out of a second-and-third, one-out jam in the top of the fifth before Haaland got a double play two pitches after entering the game in the seventh after the Profs filled the bases with one out. St. Olaf took its first lead of the game in the home half of the seventh when junior Christopher Woodside led off with a ground-rule double to left and scored on Alley's single to right in the next at bat.

Rowan strung together three consecutive one-out singles in the top of the eighth to load the bases in the top of the eighth and tied the game on a wild pitch, but Haaland got a strikeout and a foul out to avoid further damage. The score remained tied until the 10th, when St. Olaf filled the bases on a hit batter, a balk, a walk, and another hit batter before Hadley bounced a ball to second base that brought in Buck from third to end the game.

The Oles will take on Augustana (Ill.), which received votes in this week's D3baseball.com/NCBWA national poll, at 11 a.m. CDT on Friday, March 21.