DAVENPORT, Fla. – The St. Olaf College baseball team dropped both ends of its non-conference doubleheader against Colby College, falling by scores of 3-2 and 9-3 on Friday at Northeast Regional Park.

Behind a strong outing from first year Kevin Steel, St. Olaf (3-4) led the opener by a 2-1 margin entering the bottom of the seventh, but Colby (8-3) scored twice to claim game one in walk-off fashion. The Mules scored five unanswered runs to build a 6-2 cushion in game two on their way to completing the sweep in the first meetings between the two programs since 2018.

Sophomore Jack Alley led the way offensively for the Oles on the day, recording back-to-back multi-hit games while going 5-for-7 at the plate over the two games. Fellow sophomore Matthew Kulesa belted his first collegiate home run in game two.
St. Olaf continues its trip with a single nine-inning game against Kalamazoo College on Saturday, March 25 at 12 p.m. CDT back at Northeast Regional Park.

Colby 3, St. Olaf 2 | Box Score

In his first collegiate start, Steel held the Mules to one run on four hits with one walk and four strikeouts over the first six innings before Colby rallied in the seventh. Through his first two appearances, the first year has yielded just one run on six hits with two walks and eight strikeouts over nine innings of work.

Alley registered the first three-hit game of his young career by going 3-for-3 with a double and a run scored for St. Olaf, while four other Oles had one hit apiece.

After the first two batters of the opening half inning were retired, St. Olaf pushed across an early run. Junior Sam Lavin doubled and Alley followed with a single to put runners on the corners with two outs. Alley proceeded to get picked off first base but Lavin scampered home to score on the play.

Colby tied the game with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the third for its lone run off of Steel. The Oles answered in the next half inning when first year Frank Lavin followed an Alley single with a triple to put St. Olaf back on top, 2-1.

The Oles maintained the slender lead until the bottom of the seventh when the Mules started the inning with a triple and a double to tie the game and get the winning run in scoring position. Later in the inning, Colby won it on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Matthew Panker.

Colby 9, St. Olaf 3 | Box Score

An early two-run single from Alley staked St. Olaf to 2-1 first-inning lead in game two, but Colby scored twice in the second and three more times in the fourth to build a 6-2 lead on its way to the 9-3 win.

Alley followed up his three-hit game by going 2-for-4 with two RBI, while Kulesa had a double and a solo home run in a 2-for-3 game at the plate. The Mules got at least one hit from seven of their nine starting position players in the win.

After Colby scored a run in the top of the first, St. Olaf grabbed a 2-1 lead on a two-run single by Alley. Sophomore Evan Hammonds started the inning by drawing a walk and, two batters later, Sam Lavin reached on an error before a wild pitch put two runners in scoring position for Alley.

The lead did not last long, however, as the Mules scored two two-out runs in the next half inning before tacking on three runs on just one hit in the fourth. Kulesa hit his first-career home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth for the Oles' final run of the game.