The Storm baseball squad split a doubleheader with the Spartans of Dubuque Saturday in a pair of games heard live on KNIAKRLS.com via the KNIA3 stream, winning game one 3-2 in walkoff fashion and falling in game two 5-1.

The Storm got the lead in game one, breaking through in the fourth inning off of an RBI single from Josh Breitbarth, before the Spartans would tie the contest in the next half inning. With the score tied at 1 apiece going into the 6th, the Storm got an RBI double from Brennan Lemke only to see the Spartans tie the game in the top of the 7th. Breitbarth singled with two outs in the bottom of the 7th, then was driven home on a Kolton Arnold walk-off single to win the game.

Game two saw the clutch hitting not go the way of the Storm, as Dubuque scored a pair of runs in the second and fourth innings to take a 4-0 lead, before Simpson struck for their only run in the fifth with an RBI from Arnold. Dubuque added an insurance run in the ninth, and the Storm didn’t score again despite multiple opportunities. Head coach Nathan Roling tells KNIA Sports it came down to clutch hitting, and the Storm need to be more consistent with runners on base.

Simpson falls to 13-21 overall and 10-18 in American Rivers Conference play. They will next match up with rival Central for a four game series beginning this week.