MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—The Hamline University baseball team squared-off against Crown (DH) at US Bank Stadium early Wednesday morning, and dropped a pair of games by scores of 4-1 (7 innings) and 17-5 (7 innings).

The Pipers fall to 0-5, while the Polars begin their season with a 2-0 record.

Crown 4, Hamline 1 (Game One)

Both teams battled their way through four innings of scoreless baseball behind stellar starting pitching from Hamline's Zach Branson, and Crown's Aidan Volk-Specht. Owen Christenson gave the Pipers a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning when he led off with a walk, advanced to second base on Matt Rusch's sacrifice bunt, reached third on Braeden Bourne's single, and scored off Max Gerstner's single to make the score 1-0.

Hamline was an inning shy of locking a complete-game shutout, but Crown had other plans with a four-run seventh inning that secured them a 4-1 victory.

Gerstner led Hamline at the plate with a 2-for-3 outing.

Zach Branson allowed four runs on seven hits and notched five strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings of work, before Jonah Smallfield came in relief. Volk-Specht allowed just four hits, one run, and tallied four strikeouts for Crown.

Crown 17, Hamline 5 (Game Two)

Hamline managed to plate a first-inning run despite having no hits in the frame. Gerstner led off with a hit by pitch, stole second and third, and scored on a wild-pitch strikeout to give the Pipers a 1-0 lead.

That proved to be Hamline's lone lead of the contest as a four-run second, a three-run fourth, a nine-run fifth, followed by one run in the sixth propelled Crown to a 17-5 victory.

Mac Enlow and Tyler Johnson each went 2-for-4 with two runs scored for the Pipers. Ten different Polars registered a hit, led by Rhys Dewick's 3-for-3 outing.

Conor Mestemacher, Carter Hoff, and Dalton Maxwell each saw pitching time for Hamline. Ryan Vondracek, Jacob Worley, and Tyler Bloom each pitched for Crown.

The Pipers will return to US Bank Stadium tomorrow, March 2 against North Central (Minn.) (DH) at 8 a.m.