Luke Luskey hit two home runs, including the go-ahead grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning, to lead the South Dakota State baseball team to a 14-11 victory over Omaha in the Jackrabbits’ season finale Saturday afternoon at Erv Huether Field.
SDSU, which was eliminated from postseason contention on Friday, ends the season with a 20-29 overall record and 11-17 mark in The Summit League. Omaha, which will enter next week’s four-team Summit League Baseball Championship as the top seed, closed the regular season with an 18-30-1 overall record and a 16-13-1 ledger in league play.
Luskey, a redshirt freshman from Green Isle, Minnesota, homered twice for the second consecutive Saturday, starting with a three-run opposite-field blast off Omaha starter Charlie Bell following a pair of walks to Cade Stuff and Cael Frost.
Tyson Kogel, who was making only his second start of the season, ignited a pair of Jackrabbit rallies — the first of which came in the second inning when he recorded a one-out single and scored when Cade Stuff’s infield pop fly was lost in the sun and fell for a single.
Omaha touched Jackrabbit starter Owen Bishop for a pair of runs in the top of the fourth, but the Jackrabbits responded with two runs of their own when Thatcher Kozal led off with a double and Kogel walked before the duo scored on an RBI groundout off the bat.of Reece Anderson and a sacrifice fly by Cade Stuff, respectively.
The Jackrabbit lead grew to 7-2 in the fifth inning on a solo home run by Dawson Parry. It was Parry’s 15th of the season and 35th of his career, tying him with former teammate Ryan McDonald for fifth place on the all-time SDSU home run chart.
Both teams put up big numbers in the sixth inning with Omaha scoring six times to take an 8-7 lead. Jackson Trout started the inning with a single and scored on Haiden Hunt’s triple to the right-center gap that chased Bishop from the game. A hit batter, error and walked loaded the bases for Matt Goetzmann, who lined an Alex Clemons offering to the left-center gap that cleared the bases and tied the game at 7-all. Goetzmann would later score the go-ahead run on a wild pitch.
SDSU quickly countered as Kogel tripled down the right-field line and came across with the tying run on a double by Dagen Schramm. After walks to Anderson and Cael Frost filled the bases, Luskey connected on an 0-1 pitch from Joe Hackmann with a towering shot over the fence in left field for his first career grand slam and a seven-RBI day.
Luskey, Kogel, Stuff and Schramm each notched two of the Jackrabbits’ 11 hits.
Meanwhile, Jackrabbit reliever Dylan Driessen settled things down on the pitching front for SDSU by limiting the Mavericks to three hits while striking out a career-high nine batters over four innings to earn his third win of the season.
Frost added a two-run double for the Jackrabbits in the seventh inning, while Henry Zipay closed out the scoring for Omaha with a two-run home run in the top of the ninth.
Owen Bishop struck out three and walked two over five-plus innings for the Jackrabbits.
NOTES
- Omaha won the season series, 4-2, and leads the all-time series, 95-91-1
- Luskey’s seven RBIs in the game were the most by a Jackrabbit this season
- Luskey recorded the eighth multi-home run game of the season by a Jackrabbit and the seventh grand slam by an SDSU hitter in 2024
- Driessen made his 25th appearance of the year, which ranks in a tie with Chad Coley (1991) and John Semar (1993) for the fifth most in a season by a Jackrabbit pitcher
- SDSU failed to qualify for the Summit League tournament for the first time since 2012