Box Score Lindenwood baseball saw its season come to an end on Wednesday afternoon in Grand Prairie, Texas. The Lions were eliminated in the 2017 NCAA Division II National Championships with an 11-6 loss against the University of California, San Diego, and they finished the national tournament with a fifth-place showing.
 
UC San Diego opened the game with seven hits and five runs in the first two innings, which put Lindenwood behind from the very start. The Lions did get within one after two runs in both the second and third innings. Sam Baxter hit a two-run double in the second, and an error helped Wes Degener and Ryan Sosnowksi score in the third.
 
An inning later, the Lions had a chance to tie the game on a Degener double, but the Tritons threw a runner out at the plate to end the inning.
 
In the sixth, UC San Diego broke the game open with a five-run inning to make the score 10-4. Six straight batters reached in the frame, capped by a two-run double that scored the final runs of the inning.
 
Lindenwood's best chance for a late-game rally came in the seventh when its first two batters reached with singles. The Lions hit into two straight fly outs, and then a line drive ended in the inning. UC San Diego scored one time in the ninth, and Lindenwood added two more runs when Drew Quinones drove in two with a triple.
 
The two teams combined for 29 hits in the contest, with 16 from the Tritons and 13 from the Lions. UC San Diego did most of its damage with the top of its lineup. The Tritons' first four hitters went 12-for-19 with seven runs and nine RBIs.
 
Every Lindenwood player but one had at least one hit in the game. Degener finished with four hits, and Paul Sherwood had three. Sosnowski crossed home plate twice in the game, including the team's final run of the year.
 
Lindenwood concludes it season with a 40-20 overall record, its most wins since the 2010 campaign.