Cedar Rapids, Iowa - The No. 9 Central Methodist baseball program split the final two games of a weekend series against Mount Mercy Sunday afternoon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

The Eagles claimed a 3-1 series victory over the Mustangs, improving their overall record to 30-7 and 16-4 in the Heart. Mount Mercy stands at 22-12 and 12-6 in conference play. 

CMU edged Mount Mercy in the first game Sunday 6-5. The bulk of Central's runs came in the second inning. Following RBI singles from Bobby Nichols and Grant Victor, Tommaso Giarola sent a three-run home run over the left field fence to push Central's lead to 5-0. Mount Mercy plated one run in the fourth before CMU responded in the top of the fifth on an RBI-double to right centerfield from Cole Luedeking. 

The Mustangs slowly chipped away at the lead through the final three innings of work, including two runs in the seventh. With the tying run on second base, sophomore Nino Puckett got the final out of the game on a ground out to third to preserve the win. 

Tanner Sears and Logan McDonald both batted two-of-three incuding a double for McDonald and a triple for Sears. Ludeking and Vance also recorded extra base hits. Nichols swiped two bases in game one, setting a new single-season program record for stolen bases (39). The previous record of 38 was held by Bill Roth for more than 30 years. 

Sebastian Escobar pushed his record to 7-1 on the bump, tossing 5.2 innings and giving up three earned runs on six hits and eight strikeouts. Tyler Vicars came in relief in the sixth to close the inning, followed by Puckett for the seventh. Puckett would go on to earn the save, his fourth of the 2022 campaign. 

Central closed the series with a 12-3 defeat to Mount Mercy. The Eagles scored the opening two runs of the game in the first on a two-RBI single from Luedeking. Mount Mercy's offense plated four runs in the third and six in the fifth, propelling them to a nine-run victory. 

Sears batted a perfect three-for-three with one run scored, while Luedeking batted .500 and drove in all three runs for CMU. Ryan Jeffers got the start on the bump, tossing three complete innings. Vicars and Anthony G. Rodriguez saw action in the final innings, before Micah Blankenship pitched the final inning. 

Central returns home to host MidAmerica Nazarene University for a huge weekend series beginning Friday April 15 at 1:00 p.m. at Estes Field. 

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