ROCKFORD, Ill. -- The Rockford University baseball team finished the 2026 regular season with two games against the Concordia University Chicago Cougars on Friday. The Regents took game one 4-1, and the Cougars back with a 12-2 win in game two.
The Regents will return to action on Wednesday, May 6, for day one of the NACC tournament and will play Edgewood at 3 p.m. CDT, with the site yet to be determined.
Game One: Rockford 4, Concordia Chicago 1
Five separate players recorded one hit for RU.
Blaise Mace was 1-for-4 with two RBI.
Zach Fabis was 1-for-3 with an RBI.
Kadin Bergstrom,
Trent Lawrence, and
Zach Duke each had a single as well.
Logan Koeller started game one. The reigning NACC Pitcher of the Week surrendered just one run and struck out five in his six innings, earning his fifth win.Â
Kyle Koerner picked up the save, giving up just two hits over the last three innings.
After holding CUC scoreless in the top of the first, the Regents drove in two runs to take a 2-0 lead. After three consecutive walks to load the bases, Mace singled through the left side to bring Bergstrom and
Marcus Taylor home with two outs.
Nobody scored in the second. The Cougars stole a run in the third, courtesy of a Brandon Mahler RBI. Rockford matched them in the bottom of the inning. Taylor scored again off of a Duke groundout to make the score 3-1.
The Regents extended their lead to three in the fourth. Duke scored from second on a
Nate Burdin ground ball up the middle that was mishandled by the second baseman.
The defenses kicked into high gear following the fourth. The pitching dominated, with neither team scoring a run in the final four-and-a-half innings. Koerner picked up where Koeller left off, shutting down CUC to pick up a win in game one.
Game Two: Concordia Chicago 12, Rockford 2
Bergstrom and
Ryan Stary drove in Rockford's two runs. They were both 1-for-3 with an RBI. Mace was 1-for-2 with a walk.
Lawrence was given the ball to start the second game. He lasted three innings, giving up six hits and three runs.
Bartolo Rodriguez,
Nick Rich,
Logan Bennett, and
Hayden Wildman each got shots on the mound in the seven inning game.
There were two hits in the first two innings, both coming from CUC, breaking through in the third, when the Mahler twins hit back-to-back homers to give the Cougars a 3-0 lead.
Rockford got on the board in the bottom half of the inning. Their first hit of the game was a Duke single up the middle. Stary drove him in with a base hit to left field and was brought in by a Bergstrom single later in the inning.
A solo home run to right field by Cam Buckley made it a 4-2 ballgame in the fourth. CUC extended the streak to three innings in a row with a homer, when Dom Owens hit a two-run shot in the fifth.
The Cougars kept pouring it on. They scored five more runs in the sixth and one in the seventh to take a 12-2 lead.
The Regents were unable to put up a run in the seventh, falling in game two to split with CUC.
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