Fresh off of two season opening wins in Tucson, the Madison College baseball team traveled north to Paradise Valley with their sights set on improving to 3-0. The Pumas of Paradise Valley Community College had other ideas though as they pulled out the 10-4 victory on their home field.
The WolfPack played the Pumas even for the first three innings, and starter Cody Peterson gave up a first inning hit before retiring the side the next two frames. Tied up at zero heading in to the top of the fourth, the WolfPack struck first when Andrew Wasmund's deep fly ball to right field plated Tanner Vavra who had singled to right to lead off the inning. The 1-0 lead would turn out to be the only one for Madison College as the Pumas scored three and four runs in the next two innings for the 7-1 advantage after five innings.
The WolfPack put pressure on the Pumas in the sixth inning but managed to push only one run across the plate to close the gap. With one out, Ryan Freitag doubled down the right field line, stole third, and scored on Wasmund's RBI single. Paradise Valley responded with two runs in the bottom of the frame, and added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth for the 10-2 lead. The WolfPack made one last effort to pull out the victory behind three pinch hitters but only scored two runs to make it 10-4. Tyler Brusky's RBI single scored Vincent Schmitz from second base and Josh Rowles' pushed in Brusky with an RBI single of his own.
Wasmund led the WolfPack at the plate as he finished 3-for-4 with two RBIs and Tanner Vavra went 2-for-4 and scored a run. Freitag finished with the only extra base hit for Madison College, and he joined six others on the team with one hit. James Furlano stole two bases for the WolfPack, and Freitag, Maldonado, and Schmitz all finished with one.
Madison College will play their first game under the lights when they take on Pima Community College Aztecs in a doubleheader in Tucson. The first game of the doubleheader starts at 5:00 PM at the Kino Sports Complex.