LINCOLN, Neb. --- Cliff Vickers homered twice and the University of St. Francis baseball team rallied twice to get to within one run, but NAIA No. 19-ranked Doane University (Neb.) pulled away late to claim a 10-4 victory and end the Fighting Saints' run in the NAIA National Tournament Opening Round on Tuesday afternoon.

Doane (39-14) used a five-run ninth inning to end any thoughts of an upset bid by head coach Brian Michalak's club, which scored two runs one-half inning earlier to make it a 5-4 contest.

The Tigers plated single runs in the third and fourth innings to open up an early 2-0 lead.  St. Francis cut that deficit in half in the fifth inning on a Josh Kirnbauer sacrifice fly.

The two teams then exchanged single runs in the seventh inning on a pair of solo home runs with USF's coming on Vickers' first of the day.  Doane then took its biggest lead of the game (5-2) up to that point with two runs in the eighth inning.  The Saints again responded with their own two-run bottom half of the inning when Vickers again stepped to the plate and delivered a two-run home run.

USF's thoughts of putting together one more rally in the ninth inning faded when the Saints committed four errors in the ninth inning leading to all five Doane runs being unearned.

St. Francis did load the bases in the bottom of the ninth inning, but did not score.  It was one of two innings in which USF left the bases loaded in the contest, the other time coming in the seventh inning when they filled the bags with only one out.

For the game, the Saints left 12 runners on base.

Vickers, Kirnbauer, John McGuire and Brayan Hidalgo all had two hits for St. Francis.

The loss ends USF's season at 29-21.

Notes: Drew Dant edged out both John McGuire (.386) and Jake Klepacz (.384) for the team batting title with his .387 average.  He also led the club in doubles (15), home runs (9), runs batted in (51), total bases (113), slugging percentage (.673), walks (23), hit by pitches (9) and on-base percentage (.480) … McGuire claimed crowns in hits (66), runs (51), triples (5) and stolen bases (8) … Nate Maliska led the team defensively with his .994 fielding average, committing just two errors in 340 chances … In the pitching department, Ryan Daly earned the majority of the team's No. 1 rankings with his nine wins, 3.08 earned run average, five complete games, 87 strikeouts and 73 innings pitched … Zac Blazekovich recorded the most appearances (18), while Mack Malczewski gained the most starts (10) … Dant led the team out of the bullpen with three saves … Tuesday's four errors tied a season high.
 
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