The Buena Vista baseball team was one big inning away from a big doubleheader sweep on Saturday at Wartburg College, but for the second straight day the two teams split their Iowa Conference doubleheader, leaving the Beavers alone in first by one game.

Wartburg took a 1-0 lead in the opener with a run in the second before the Beavers came right back with RBI singles from Jeremy Lambert and Tanner Truesdell to go in front, 2-1.  A Brandon Wessels RBI base knock in the fourth then made it a 3-1 contest.

The Knights, however, took advantage of back-to-back walks to start the home half of the inning and wound up scoring five times on just three hits.  All five runs scored with two outs.

A one-out single by Ryan Titman in the sixth was the only base runner for the Beavers the rest of the way.

Truesdell and Titman each went 2-for-3 at the dish with Truesdell driving in one and Titman scoring one.  Justin Lange got the start and did not get the decision after going three innings.  He was charged with three runs on two hits, struck out four and walked two.

Lucas Hadaway (4-1) took over for Lange after the consecutive walks in the fourth and was charged with the final three runs of the inning (two earned) to suffer his first loss of the year.  He did strike out a pair.  Cam Beatty worked the final three innings, allowing just one hit, walked two and struck out two.  He also picked-off two runners.

The Knights scored three times in the first inning to take a 3-1 lead, but the Beavers slowly began to claw their way back.  Neil Marshall tripled to lead off the third and scored two batters later on a sacrifice fly from Weston Foxx.  Then in the fourth, Titman singled home Truesdell to tie things up at 3-3.

BVU regained the lead in the fifth on a sacrifice fly from Bryce Wessels and then broke things open in the sixth with four runs to take an 8-3 lead.  All four runs were scored after the first two batters were retired and included RBI singles from Brandon Wessels, Lambert, Truesdell  and Bryce Wessels.

Wartburg (23-13, 17-7 IIAC) was able to get one back in the sixth and added another in the ninth, but Ian Grigsby struck out the final hitter of the game to preserve the win for the Beavers, who have yet to lose consecutive games on the year.

BVU pounded out 13 hits in the game, but Marshall's triple was the only extra-base knock.  Lambert finished 3-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored, while Bryce Wessels was one of four players to record two base hits.  He also drove in two.  Marshall was also one of those with a a pair of base hits and added three runs scored.

Tyson Valentine got the start for BVU, but was only able to survive just one-third of an inning.  He was charged with all three of the Wartburg runs that inning, while allowing three hits and two walks.

Kendall Hazel came on in relief and got a nice double play to end the threat and went on to work 4.2 innings to improve to 1-1.  He allowed just one run on three hits, struck out three and walked only one.

Jake Bjorkgren worked three perfect innings, striking out two before Grigsby allowed one run on two hits in the ninth to go along with two strikeouts.

Buena Vista now sits at 29-7 overall (18-6 IIAC) and remains one game in front of the Knights in the IIAC standings with just one series to go.  The Beavers will return home to host Loras College (17-17, 13-11 IIAC) on May 2-3 with the IIAC regular season title on the line.  The Duhawks fell out of contention over the weekend by droping 3-of-4 at home to Central.

The Dutch (23-12, 15-9 IIAC), meanwhile, have caught fire of late and are now up to third, just three games back of the Beavers.  They will now host Wartburg in their final series.