Rose-Hulman baseball wins its HCAC tourney opener

May 9—Rose-Hulman opened the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference baseball tournament with a 5-0 victory over Franklin on Thursday afternoon.

The Engineers will move on to play Transylvania at the rescheduled time of 10 a.m. Friday in the winners' bracket.

Lefty Michael Yager pitched a five-hit shutout with eight strikeouts against the Grizzlies.

Rose got on the board in the second inning with an RBI double by Josh Erpenbeck and an RBI groundout by Jonathan Oliger to take an early advantage. The Engineers came alive again in the fifth, loading the bases with just one out, and Connor O'Connell ripped a sacrifice fly to the warning track for an RBI. Then Colton Brown stepped up with a two-run single to stretch the lead to 5-0.

Kade Kline, Peter Rogers, Brown and Mason Rasmussen led the team with two hits each.

The Engineers are now 24-17 for the season.