
It was a heartfelt weekend in Peoria as the Braves completed their annual traditions. The weekend kicked off with the Mitch Janssen Memorial game, in honor of the former Bradley pitcher who tragically passed away in a plane crash on March 3, 2020. The Janssen family was in attendance and threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
“It always just kind of reminds you that this is just a game,” senior right-handed pitcher Travis Lutz said. “We’re blessed to have what we have and don’t take anything for granted, because it can be taken away from you like that. Our problems aren’t as big as others all the time.”
Then on Sunday, the Braves hosted their Vs. Cancer Game as the entire team shaved their heads in support of raising awareness for pediatric brain tumor cancer in children. Throughout the years of having the event, Bradley has raised $166,000 for the Vs. Cancer Foundation.
Janssen played a significant role in the incorporation of the Vs. Cancer Game when he played for the Braves.
“Mitch was very instrumental in trying to put it together, but really carrying it forward,” head coach Elvis Dominguez said. “To really make it personal, in a sense, where we’re going to help out families. We’re going to help out kids, we’re going to help out the community.”
The annual event is held close to the hearts of everyone on the team, and their efforts have had a monumental impact.
“It’s really a testament to [the team] that they really understand what impact they’re having on young lives,” Dominguez said. “You know, sometimes the game… you have to make it help somebody else. Do that and use our positions, I think it’s great. I think we’re the number one fundraising team in the country.”
Lasting legacy
Following their win against Western Illinois, Bradley baseball (5-27, 1-11 MVC) welcomed Belmont (16-23, 6-6 MVC) to Dozer Park for a Missouri Valley Conference series. The Braves entered the three-game weekend searching for their first MVC win of the season and found the big egg they’ve been seeking on Sunday.
With a former ace in their minds and hearts that day, Lutz earned the start for the Braves and had one of his best days of the season. Belmont found just two RBI-singles off Lutz in the first and third innings, but it proved to be all they needed.
Lutz tied his career-highs with seven innings pitched and nine strikeouts while allowing five hits, two earned runs and three walks.
“I was able to connect my pitch as well with the fastball and the slider, and then end in the change-up,” Lutz said about his execution. “Change up is not usually my first pitch of selection to put away people, and it was able to work this week just following it with a sinker fastball at the top of the zone.”
“Phenomenal,” Dominguez said about Lutz’s performance. “I mean, he battled [Belmont’s pitcher] pitch for pitch, inning for inning and probably his best outing of the year so far.”
Belmont tacked on another RBI single in the top of the eighth as a security blanket, while the Bradley offense kept quiet with only three hits and three walks. Belmont stole seven bases as they used their speed as an advantage to create havoc on the base paths.
“I thought our running game and controlling the running game was not as sharp as it needed to be,” Dominguez said. “They took advantage… That’s what their offense is based on. They’re not going to beat you with a long ball. So they try to create a lot of havoc on the base.”
Overall, the Braves struggled to find contact, as they struck out 11 times on their way to a 3-0 opening loss to the Bruins.
Big inning bites again
Saturday’s game featured another low-scoring start that carried over into the eighth inning. Bradley found instant offense in the second inning from the bat of senior utility Bobby Atkinson as he sent a ball deep over Dozer’s green wall that gave the Braves a 1-0 lead when the baseball landed.
Both teams proceeded to collect outs quickly, until the fourth inning, when Belmont scored on a sacrifice fly to center field, tying the game at 1-1. Freshman right-handed pitcher Josh Vaughn displayed efficiency on the rubber with just 64 pitches thrown in a career-high five innings. He allowed seven hits, no earned runs, one walk and a career-best seven strikeouts.
Although it remained knotted up for a majority of the game, Belmont kept finding ways to get base-runners and threaten to kick the door down. Bradley still couldn’t find green grass after Atkinson’s home run.
The scale began to tip in the seventh inning when the Bruins perfected a sacrifice bunt to take the 2-1 lead. Later in the ninth, Belmont broke the scale after eight Bruins reached home plate, as the Braves couldn’t stop the big inning that had hurt them all season.
“[Belmont’s pitcher] on Friday, I thought [he] was electric,” Dominguez said. “He has a chance to be on the first team in the league. The guy on Saturday, I thought we battled really hard. It was a 2-1 ball game into the ninth inning, so we competed well against him.”
Belmont didn’t use big plays to earn the 10-1 win, but rather strategic, small-ball with sacrifice hits, short singles and bases-loaded walks to plague the Braves to another MVC series loss.
“It’s hard to explain in baseball, because it’s a check swing, base hit, a walk, an error, anything can happen,” Dominguez said. “You have to be so perfect. And you know, the score was lopsided. Looked that way. But in reality, it was a much better played ball game than what the score showed.”
Sunday funday
All hope wasn’t lost, as the Braves finished their series against Belmont on Sunday afternoon. With their backs against the wall in a 3-0 deficit after one inning, the Braves’ bats forged ahead with their best offensive game of the season.
“I think our kids were frustrated from the first two days,” Dominguez said. “I mean, offensively, we didn’t swing the bats well on Friday and Saturday, but that was because of their [pitching] staff. I mean, sometimes you’ve got to tip your hat to the other team. I mean, it is what it is, you compete.”
After junior infielders Cole Smith and Beau Durbin reached base, junior utility Mason Breidenbach did damage with a double to right field that scored one run. Next at-bat, Atkinson barrelled up a pitch for his second home run of the weekend that tied the game.
The fun didn’t end there, as junior infielder Timmy O’Brien did what he’s done all season and homered in back-to-back plate appearances for the Braves.
An error by the Bruins’ defense allowed senior infielder Nick Fleckenstein to score in the second inning. While Belmont put runners on base, Bradley’s pitching and defense did a great job of holding runners and getting out of innings unscathed.
Then, in the bottom of the third, senior outfielder Cole Luckey stepped up to the plate with two runners on base and launched a three-run homer to give Bradley an 8-3 lead. The score remained unchanged until Belmont added one more run in the sixth.
“He’s a senior force. He’s worked extremely hard, still trying to put good at-bats together,” Dominguez said. “During practice, I just had a gut feeling that day that, all right, I think this guy is due. Things like that happen, you look like a genius, but I think it’s all his demeanor and how hard he’s worked.”
Luckey knows he must be ready at any moment to enter a game, pinch-hit and get a start. His accountability built him up for his big day.
“[I’m] always thinking like, today’s the day I’m gonna be in the lineup, today’s the day I’m gonna get that at-bat, that hit for the team, and just do anything I can to help us succeed on the field,” Luckey said.
Whatever the Bruins added, the Braves always had a bigger answer. Durbin joined the home run club in the bottom of the sixth with a two-RBI blast. Five batters later in the same inning, Luckey delivered once again with another three-run shot over the Belmont defense to put Bradley ahead 13-4.
“I was really just trying to see something up [in the zone] and hit the ball the other way in order to catch that breaking ball,” Luckey said about his approach. So I ended up getting a curveball low in the zone. I went to my two-strike approach earlier in that count, and I was able to connect on that.”
The Braves capped the big inning with two more runs created by Fleckenstein and Breidenbach. Once junior right-handed pitcher Jackson Horras sat down the three Belmont hitters in the seventh inning, Bradley clinched the 15-4 run-rule win in just seven innings. Seven different hitters in the Braves’ lineup recorded two hits.
“I think it just became contagious in a momentum standpoint,” Dominguez said about the offensive production. “If you ask me, what’s the secret to it? Every day [there] is a new guy on the mound. That’s a good thing about baseball. You gotta watch whatever happens, and you gotta come up today.”
One step forward, another step back
With the Braves earning their fifth win of the season and first in MVC play, they had the chance to earn back-to-back wins for the first time all season in Iowa City against the Iowa Hawkeyes (24-11, 14-4 Big Ten Conference).
A promising start had the Braves feeling confident when Atkinson drew a bases-loaded walk in the first inning, and O’Brien went deep for his 11th home run of the year in the third, putting Bradley ahead 4-0 against their Big Ten opponent.
But it all came tumbling down in the bottom half of the third when Iowa scored six runs on seven hits. The Hawkeyes pounced with six more runs across the next five innings while the Braves only added one run on two hits.
“We set the tone early, the first three innings, it was about as scripted as you can,” Dominguez said. “You can have it, you know, shut them out for three innings. We scored a run in the first, scored three in the third, and then [allowed] free runners, free runners, free runners. And now all of a sudden, base hit, and you’re down 6-4.”
Bradley fell once again to Iowa with a score of 12-5. Seven different pitchers saw action for the Braves and O’Brien led the offense with his home run and three RBIs.
Bradley returns home once again as they await a rivalry series with Illinois State. The three-game series is slated to begin on Friday.
“It’s just something inherited, being a local guy, that Bradley versus ISU is a big deal,” Lutz said. “Inherit it through the older guys being here, you hear about things that happen and things you want to continue, and that’s just one team that gets circled on the schedule pretty early.”